Back to School: Equality/BLM:

September 2020: We were on Zoom for what felt like forever and then were finally going back to school!

The year groups came back one day after another and we were all so excited to see our friends, yet we were cautious, as we hadn’t been in contact with other people for ages.

We had to wear masks in corridors and generally around school, then it changed to mandatory in classrooms as well.

Currently, it’s optional to wear masks (September 2021 onwards) unless a teacher specifically asks you to.

We also had designated areas in the main hall because the government made us put in place ‘year group bubbles’, which meant that we didn’t interact with the other year groups, wore masks in corridors and had our own designated spaces on the fields for break and lunch, with the older year groups getting marquees.

A lot of these rules were able to make us feel safer without inconveniencing ourselves, but there was one thing we found extremely annoying: the one way system. It always seemed that wherever

I got COVID just before the Christmas holidays in 2021. Here is me, Florence, Zooming the Time Capsule Club...

On 25th May 2020, George Floyd, an African-American, was suspected to have used a counterfeit $20 bill, so a store clerk called 911… there should be an exit, there was an entrance and vice versa!

The police officer handcuffed Floyd but when resisting to going in the squad car, the policemen pinned him to the ground and one placed their knee on his neck, which eventually killed him. This act of police brutality caused many BLM (Black Lives Matter) protests. Due to the fact that everyone was stuck at home watching TV and events, people became at home protesters and information spread much quicker than usual.

If there was a tray, with three biscuits on it, but someone told you one was poisoned, you wouldn’t eat any would you?

Even though Hymers managed the whole situation well, multiple classes were isolated due to positive COVID tests. Our class was isolated on my birthday for two weeks, which was quite hard since we had anticipated to never have to do lessons on Zoom again, but we braved through it and were back at school before Christmas.

Lydia

Not many people seemed to care to raise the uprising issue of female safety while out - particularly at night. This issue became front page headlines when Sarah Everard was found dead on 5th March 2021. Protests were sparked throughout the country, but the Government just said “Girls, don’t go out after 8pm, especially if you are alone”. However, when someone presented the idea of “why do the girls need to be punished by not being allowed out, surely the boys should have a curfew instead”, this idea was immediately dismissed. This, again, caused an uproar.

My friends and I came up with a story to describe how women feel when told “it’s not all men”

If there was a tray, with three biscuits on it, but someone told you one was poisoned, you wouldn’t eat any would you? It is the same when we say that we are careful with all men because the issue is still men.

As with all major viruses the goal that every country was trying to achieve was to develop a vaccine (and to be the first one to do it and brag about it).

However, vaccine development takes a lot of time. This was confirmed by the fact that the World Health Organisation (the WHO) said that they hadn’t expected a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 to be in less than 18 months. However compelled by the danger of this virus,