This week we would like you to write about your experience with home learning and the lockdown. This could be hand written or typed and it would be great if you could include some quotes from the people you are living with about their experience too. We want to hear about all the positive, fun times and the times when you've found it tricky.

Have a look at this example from Miss. Motion:

My name is Rosie and I am currently in lockdown in Ipswich with my boyfriend and his son who is spending a week with us and a week with his mum alternately. I am a primary school teacher and I have been working from home for 12 weeks now. 

Working from home has been a steep learning curve and overall it has been a positive experience but there have been some really tough times. I have set up a temporary ‘office’ in the small storage room in our flat (it is technically classed as a bedroom but you can’t fit a single bed in there!) I have learnt through the weeks that if I spend too long in there on my laptop then a. I get serious back ache and b. I go a little stir crazy. I have taken to walking along the beautiful waterfront and up to Holywells park each day. This takes about 2 hours. I find the familiarity of the walk comforting and it’s important to get exercise regularly.

Most days I wake up around 7am, get showered, have breakfast and most importantly have a cup of tea. By 8:30 I am at my desk, opening my laptop and looking at the emails that have accumulated. My day is a mixture of chatting to parents on dojo, setting work, updating the school home learning tab on the website, phoning parents and completing courses to extend my own learning. I particularly look forward to phoning parents. I often get to chat to the children and this makes me miss them a little less. I have really struggled not seeing them every day. The class I teach this year is wonderful, interesting and has so much character. I really miss them.

My boyfriend is also working from home. He has set up in the corridor entrance in out flat. He spends most of his time coding and fixing bugs in the software he works with at work so he needs lots of screens to work on. He also video calls his colleagues a lot. We have found it hard to consider each other in our work at times. I am currently recording myself reading the Harry Potter series and I can get a little enthusiastic when reading these and doing character voices. This means I can be so loud it interrupts his virtual meetings! I asked his today how it has been working at home together and he said ‘It has been really nice to have you home so much and I like going for walks together and getting more time with each other in the afternoon but you do talk a lot…I love you but you really do talk a lot.’

All I hear is that he likes to spend time with me and he loves me.

He is right though, one of the biggest positives that has come out of this situation is the time I have been able to spend with my family. My partner’s son and I are able to play video games together, we are having board game nights and cooking together, we go for walks and sit down to eat together more often and I really feel we have bonded more.

Overall I have enjoyed this time in lockdown. It has tested me professionally and I think I can go back to work as a better teacher, I have managed to spend much more time with my family and create memories that I will treasure. I have completed DIY projects that have been on the list for a year. That being said I miss my students and colleagues terribly. I have had days where I struggle to get half an hours work done because I can’t concentrate, where I would much rather watch TV than read Harry Potter. I have learnt a lot and this will be an experience I will remember forever.