I received this card in a parcel this week (another wool delivery to feed my out-of-control crochet habit – don’t tell Mr Parker!) and when I first read it I thought “Yeah, right! No such thing as a happy day at the moment!”  popped it on the table and forgot about it.

And then, Crew happened.

Today we checked-out for half-term with our Lockdown Highlights and Lowlights.

The lowlights were the same for most of us: not being able to see friends/family and a flurry of uneventful lockdown birthdays.  Other lowlights included eating too much cake (never a lowlight, in my eyes!), annoying siblings and, that good old lockdown classic, ending up with a wonky home haircut.

The highlights made us appreciate that, despite the lowlights, we’ve actually had lots of Happy Days during lockdown, too:

• We’re spending more time with immediate family
• We’re spending more time outside
• We’ve switched off gaming consoles and gone out on family walks
• We’ve had more time to do new things, like gardening and baking
• Some of us have taken up running
• We’ve found that we’re eating together as a family more

It’s fair to say that half term hasn’t been met with the usual enthusiasm.  Crew haven’t been buzzing with the thought of having two weeks off: no meeting up with friends in the park or in town, the novelty of having late nights and lazy lie-ins has worn off and we have no holidays or day trips with family to look forward to!  In fact, some of them have admitted that they’re going to miss having school work set because – let’s face it – there’s nothing else to do!*

However, having heard how Crew are enjoying the extra time with family, spending time doing things they wouldn’t normally do, I think there will be more ‘oh, happy day’ moments to look forward to.

So, before we check out for a well deserved break, I just want to say this:

Crew – it’s been a tough 8 weeks, getting used to our new normal.

You’ve all dealt with it in your own way. And that’s OK.  There is no right or wrong way to deal with this situation.

Some of you have adapted really well and have embraced the challenges of home learning.

Some of you have struggled with the changes and have had to withdraw from us for a while.  And that’s OK. Crew have been right here waiting for you. It was lovely to welcome you back today.

What you’re doing – right here, right now – is good enough.

Enjoy the break and stay safe,
Mrs Parker x

*I have suggested to those who are behind on work to use these 2 weeks to catch-up and I’ll be available to help!  I’ll be sending emails out to those this applies to.

It was great to see most of Crew at the Y9 STEAM hangout on Tuesday where Mr Smith and Mr Said set them off with the immersion task, which was to go outdoors, do a bit of bird watching and take pictures of nature.

I’m lucky to live in quite a rural spot and do spend a lot of time outdoors either walking the dogs, running, or just pottering around my back garden.  But, as much as I enjoy being outside, I can’t say that I ever really stop, look or listen to my surroundings; I kinda take it all for granted.  So the immersion task to record how many birds we see has really made me take notice and appreciate what’s in my own back yard.  I’ve spotted sparrows, robins, blue tits, pigeons and goldfinches.  And those birds in the picture above flying over the fields behind my house aren’t actually called “them flipping noisy screechy things” like I thought, they’re actually black headed gulls!

But what I like the most about this immersion activity is that it’s something you can all together at home whilst out on your daily walks or just from your kitchen window (I never knew there were so many different birds visiting my garden!) Crew have access to the birding sheet via the STEAM google classroom, or contact me and I’ll send you one.  I’d love to see pictures of what you find on your walks or of the birds you’re spotting, so please share!

Note of caution: although this sounds like a lovely family bonding session I feel like I should give you a bit of a warning: Mr P and I have daily arguments over what some of the birds we spot are; we can’t agree if we’ve got thrushes or blackbirds nesting in our roof!!

There are also a couple of optional challenges you could all work on together: build a bird house or build a bug box.  Send in pictures if you make anything!

You can find out more about the STEAM expedition – including what the guiding question is – on the ‘Here Comes the Sun’ expedition website.

Praise

I couldn’t keep up with the amount of praise postcards that have been sent out to Crew this week!  Super proud of those who are continuing to work hard and produce high quality work, but special mentions go to Thomas, Tom, Aden, Ali and Noah.

I’ll share some of their beautiful work in a future blog post, but for now I’ll share what could quite possibly be my favourite praise card ever sent (from Miss Wilmot to Ali)

A huge well done to Thomas from me, too for sending in these pictures of him practicing his DofE first aid skills on his brother.  Great work, Thomas (and Lewis!)

Have a lovely weekend, all.  Stay safe.

Mrs Parker

As we come to the end of Week 6, I asked Crew to draw the 3 things that’ve made lockdown a little but more bearable for them.  Here’s a snippet of some of the …erm… better drawings we had:

Some form of technology featured on most of the pictures (there were some very strange looking phones drawn!) Technology is certainly making the lockdown restrictions more bearable and it’s great that we can use it to “see” friends, family and Crew on a regular basis.

Technology also connects us to the world beyond our own little circle and, earlier in the week, our very own Noah was invited by our friends at EL Education to choreograph and perform a dance. They had spotted his talent when he featured in this previous blog post.

Noah’s dance will be featured as part of a wider celebration from EL Education for their #BetterWorldDay – this year’s focus is on expressing gratitude for those working on the frontline during the Covid-19 crisis and I think Noah’s performance is a perfect and emotional tribute.

You can watch Noah’s full performance here in our weekly ‘This Week in the Trust’ update, along with catching up on all the other wonderful things happening across the trust:

Another highlight of the week was seeing members of Crew receiving praise from Miss Haughey and Mrs Sprakes for their efforts: Bryn, Kobe, Dakota and Aden have all be recognised for working hard in Maths and Spanish.

My appreciation cards went to Thomas and Tom for their consistent hard work across all subjects, and to Ali for always stepping up to Crew challenges, be it contributing to blog posts (see below) or leading Crew check-ins (she makes a cracking Deputy Crew Leader!)

Looking ahead to Week 7, we’re  kicking off a new STEAM expedition.  Kobe has already tried (and failed) to guess what it’s going to be about. Here’s a teaser for you – any ideas?

That’s all from me – I’m handing over to Ali!

Mrs Parker

And now please welcome our Guest Blogger, the fabulous Ali, giving her account of her experience of living in lockdown:

Hello! This is Ali, updating you all during this quarantine period. 

Honestly during this time I have been working hard and breaking this up by doing fun activities such as SFX makeup, that my crew saw during a check-in because I didn’t notice that it was earlier than usual. 

I have been keeping in contact with my close friends everyday and having frequent exercise (while of course staying a safe distance from people, which I would do anyway). 

Of course at these very unusual and difficult times it’s impossible to stay positive all the time so to increase these times I have been doing activities I enjoy such as: baking, writing, reading and watching great movies (mainly Marvel and Jurassic Park). During this time I somehow managed to make a cake that was supposed to take 15 minutes to bake and took 50 minutes to bake. Clearly I’m a magician. I also managed to fill an entire piece of paper with badly drawn fish, I’m running out of ideas for things to keep me occupied.