Teenage lockdown Part 2

Teenage lockdown Part 2

By Mia Williams

HELLO everybody! I’m back again with part two of ‘my experiences in lockdown’. It was really nice hearing the feedback from my previous article, I was really shocked as to how many people liked it.

So July… I was surprised that we didn’t go back to school before the summer holidays. The Roseland Academy decided to keep the school closed until further notice, with hints that it would reopen in September. But being the stereotypical teenager, I wasn’t complaining, what I had missed the most was seeing my school friends and having a laugh.

Moving on to August, the main month to make the most of the Cornish heat! I can’t say it was a hugely different summer, but it wasn’t the same either. Regular activities were going to the beaches. My family’s ‘go-to’ beach is usually Carne or Pendower, near Veryan, because it’s local and overall a lovely beach, especially for walking dogs in the evening.

I suppose due to lockdown it was a real opportunity to realise who my real friends were, seeing who would contact me just for a chat every now and then. I was surprised at who of my friends didn’t bother, but I chose not to dwell on it and chose to move on. I made loads of new friends over this summer, and I am very grateful to have them all in my life today! I think at this point COVID-19 was becoming some kind of normality, it was just the ‘new normal’ to wear masks wherever I went. It didn’t come as much of a shock when I found out more locals had got the virus. Obviously, I felt great sympathy for those who had caught the virus, but at this point, the majority of us was thinking well, we will all get it at some point.

September… For me, a lot changed this month, mainly around going back to school. The general vibe at school was ‘off’ should I say, but everyone was pleased to see their mates, especially those they hadn’t seen since March. I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting to change at school if I’m honest, but everything came to a blur.

Our timetable rota times had changed. Our lessons were sectioned into half an hour slots, to ensure different year groups didn’t mix and all the year groups had separate break and lunchtimes. It was nice going back to Year 10 because I got to experience some new subjects such as engineering and media that I had picked for my GCSEs.

Despite being physically back at school, quite a lot of our work is still online. To maintain social distancing, we have to take a picture of our work, submit it to Google Classroom so the teachers can mark it. It is the same process with homework. The alternative is to hand it into ‘isolation’ for two days before the teacher marks it. It then goes back into ‘isolation’ for another two days before we receive it back. The process using Google Classroom is just a lot quicker but it becomes a struggle if someone doesn’t have a phone or doesn’t have wifi at home. For me personally, I feel I have kept up on my school work as I worked all through the school hours during lockdown. But some students have fallen behind, so for the teachers it is difficult to put them into the right classes.

Halloween season! I think October was quite a fun month for me, I was seeing my friends regularly, and it all seemed to be going good. Then I started to notice that numbers of COVID-19 cases were increasing in other parts of the country. Many schools had closed because students and teachers had caught the virus or were told to self-isolate.

I didn’t want to accept the fact we might have to go into another lockdown. We would lose everything that we had gained and return to how it used to be. At this point, I was convinced it would happen down here in Cornwall, it was all happening so fast I couldn’t keep up.

November, boom it hit - right at the beginning. Lockdown for a month. I think this lockdown is affecting me a lot as I can’t see the majority of my friends, as most of them live in Truro. Although I still have friends in the Roseland area, it just isn’t the same. I personally know a few people from other schools who have caught COVID-19, and recently someone from The Roseland caught the virus. I am surprised it’s happening so close to me, and it really does seems real, not something far away. I hope that in the future everyone can recover from this pandemic and it all goes back to normal soon. I also hope that everyone reading this has a wonderful Christmas, hopefully out of lockdown!