Year 8s Lockdown Experiences: TCC and the OHs (Old Hymerians)

It’s crazy to think that almost 2 years ago was the first time we entered lockdown. ‘Quarantine’, ‘isolation’ and ‘Coronavirus’ were all new words that we are used to hearing everyday. I remember being excited to have a break for the early mornings and long school days. “It’s only until Easter,” they said.

I guess me and my family coped pretty well: I was still motivated to do schoolwork, my mum carried on working from home, my dad was a key worker and my eldest brother was doing uni from home. We were only worried about my younger brother who was studying for the A Levels that were cancelled. I was quite lucky as I was able to return to school for three weeks before the summer hols and see some of my old friends. In the summer holidays we were lucky to escape to Hungary to see family after not seeing them all year.

After the holidays, I started Year 7, which was alright, but as usual things were cancelled or postponed. After Christmas we sat in front of the television, waiting for Boris to announce the latest restrictions. Another lockdown. This lockdown was terrible. The weather was bad and doing 7 lessons each day on Zoom was exhausting.

After we returned to school, bad news came again, end-of-year exams were on. Finally it was the summer holidays again. And now we’re here. I’ve just had COVID and both my brothers are at Uni. My family’s coped well and followed most of the restrictions and now we wait for life to return to normal and to see our family in Hungary again. I hated remote learning, it was suffocating being indoors all day doing homework all day. But sometimes it was nice to just be lazy and eat whenever you wanted.

Kinga Karsai 21/3/22

In those past two years, my life has completely changed. Not just mine, everyone’s has. These two years weren’t just bad memories though, there were some good memories too. If I’m going to be honest, when I heard there was a virus called COVID-19, I thought it wouldn’t come to England and we’ll be safe, but I was wrong. I was quite happy with the fact that school was closed, it isn’t everyone’s dream to go to school! My school gave us work in folders because we didn’t have Zoom. During quarantine, I was actually happier than ever! My family and I were really close together and were having family time, (spending time in the garden every morning). Although it was still boring not to go to school and see friends, I never felt lonely as I was either spending time with family or watching Netflix/YouTube. However, nothing was more iconic than the rush for toilet roll! My mum also bought so many snacks, I couldn’t believe it! It has lasted us the whole year! Finally, I hope I don’t curse it, but I haven’t had COVID yet!

Yasemin Aydemir 21/3/22

The most difficult part of the past two years has been home learning. Whilst I have not found it overly hard, there have been a multitude of challenges posed by it including, but not restricted to, dodgy internet issues and space in the home to do work. However, I did get a dog, a computer and much better sleep, waking up at 8 - 8:30 every day. Having tested positive twice at two extremely inconvenient times, was disappointing to say the least!

Daniel Pailing 21/3/22

During lockdown 2020 many things have happened in my family and beyond. I shall state each event in chronological order; because I obtained a scholarship for Hymers and Hull Collegiate I got a phone, No10 Samsung. In March 2020 my parents decided to stop sending me to school, (I wouldn’t have missed anything anyway) because the pandemic was not something to worry the teachers and wearing masks was not allowed at the time.

For the next month or so, I stayed at home, but on 1st June, we set off for Romania. There my grandma bought me ducklings and chicks. My neighbour (nine years old) invited me daily to play on his X-box, and outside in his garden to play football, (he did not go anywhere therefore, he was COVID safe).

During my extended summer holiday, we went to a place in Romania called the ‘Salina’. This is a salt mine at the tail of the Scarpathian Mountains (breathing the salt is really good for your lungs). After this holiday, I spent two weeks in quarantine before going to my new school (on a scholarship). The second lockdown was annoying because my laptop got slower and slower as I filled it with school docs and I also couldn’t go to Romania. It was boring. On the bright side I did get a budgie and moved house!

Alex Simioana

21/03/22

I think that COVID was hard since you couldn’t see your friends every day like you could when you were at school, so it got boring after a couple of weeks. Remote learning was also boring as it was much easier to get distracted and it was harder to pay attention to what the teacher was saying. However, it was fun since you did no work and got to be lazy!

Sreeya Balaji 21/03/22

During lockdown, we did many things to do with our Old Hymerians, including Zoom interviews, and writing letters to them to find out what school life and the lockdown was like for them.

An example of a reply (others in the Time Capsule): For all of us the last year has been quite topsy turvy, but I can only imagine how difficult it might have been for you joining a new school and then being out for most of the year. I think the situation in England has been particularly challenging with going in and out of lockdown several times. I have three young children who were sent home from school in March last year just like you and we had to make the adjustment to learning via Zoom. It was HORRIBLE! Fortunately, the school year is very different to yours (it runs from the 2nd week of August to the last week of May) so we didn’t have to do the remote learning for as long as you…

OH, Georgia.

TCC finally meeting OHs face to face.