We’re now a week into our school closure. It's a new situation for everyone, and we just wanted to acknowledge that it is hard. We know that our families (and our staff) have a lot to deal with. You are probably juggling work and childcare, and members of your family may be feeling anxious, or unwell, or family relationships can be strained when we’re all cooped up together. Many have additional concerns to deal with like financial worries or existing health problems.
We want to reassure you that the wellbeing of our students, staff and community is our number one priority. We’re hearing that some people are feeling under extra pressure with home learning and we want to address that.
Wellbeing
We have put together a web resource with lots of advice, tips and help to support your wellbeing during this period of isolation. It covers how to deal with information overload, surviving isolation, keeping well, dealing with anxiety, social connection and mental health support. We’d really encourage you to take a look.
Home Learning
Our aim with our home learning is to help provide structure and continuity of learning by providing work, resources and support for students to complete at home. We’re taking on board your feedback that perhaps the amount of work provided is a little too high for some of you, and have asked Heads of Department to review this and to set less work and more fun learning activities going forward after Easter.
It’s a tricky balance to meet as students work at a different pace. Some people deal with the worry of the situation by keeping busy and filling their day with online classes, whilst others find that adds pressure. Please just do the best that you can, and cut yourself some slack. Reading a book, baking a cake, going for a walk or teaching your Gran about Netflix are all also officially good ways of spending your time.
There have also been IT issues which have not helped (many of these were national rather than school based, due to demand for online learning platforms). We are grateful for your patience, and the efforts of our IT team and teachers for helping to resolve these.
No additional work will be set during the Easter break, but if you are looking for things to do there are plenty of resources linked from the Home Learning page, along with the suggestions on the Wellbeing page. You will still be able to access the previous week’s work.
Finally, a big thank you to the teams of staff who are keeping our school provision open for those who need it, and to those at home who are learning all sorts of new ways to engage and support our students at a distance. Did you catch Miss Lewis’ livestream on Maths’ Facebook page and our PE staff’s video challenges this week?
Here’s some Ryburn faces who took part in the #ClapForOurCarers on Thursday.