Friday's Reflections

We have made it to the end of another lockdown week. Some of you prefer this way of working and are actually doing a lot more work with the daily interactions with the teacher than with our normal routines. Some of you are finding it little more difficult because you have a routine and this is interrupting it. We are making fine tuning adjustments, as we go along, to help those of you out as we can.

With the refresher course for GCSE Maths taking up 4 and half hours one afternoon a week, time is tight and so it is really important that you are ready, with your laptop, iPad, phone all charged up ready to go when it is your lesson time. we are moving no on to more difficult fractions and verbs so you also need your pen and paper on your desk too.

Due to the work load this week, this week has been really busy, I was late with the Word of the Week. The fact that nobody noticed means that all of you haven't done it. It happens every Wednesday (or should if I am not too busy and forget) you should be checking o Wednesday and letting me know if I have indeed forgotten.

Sadly, we all woke up today to find in the national and local news that our region and our local areas may be in Tier 2 next week. I have had a long conversation with my business insurers and their legal team, who are of the opinion that all though most schools are open: there is now 20% of all students in the UK at home in isolation due to Covid-19. The local secondary school at the bottom of the hill has 5 out of 6 whole year groups in isolation. Whilst we are a organisation dedicated to learning, the fact is we do not have a school building, therefore the authorities will not consider us as a "school" in traditional terms. Furthermore, because we all can work from home - we should work from home and there should be no home visits. Again they have pointed out the time, effort and cost involved if I am stopped by the police to fight the case - we have both taken the viewpoint that we would both rather spend the time on more positive things - like actually teaching you. Therefore, lessons will continue to be virtual for another three weeks up to the end of term.

If that does not fill you with glee - remember, we are home schoolers and we can do this. I am not happy about not coming out and spending quality time with you, the screen is useful in that it keeps us safe but it does take away something from the lessons. It is stir up Sunday this weekend and we can all focus our energies on making homemade traditional Christmas puddings and reading Charle Dickens' A Christmas Carol.