Fyling Hall’s Year 8 have been thinking about how their work will be of use to future historians.
In studying aspects of Charles II’s reign and examining extracts of Samuel Pepys’ diary, pupils have become more aware of the role of primary evidence in their study of history. They have also had the opportunity to create their own diary accounts of the “Great Lockdown”, accounts which will surely be of use to future historians! Have a little read of some of the things they have written!
Dairy in the style of Pepys by Olivia
Dear Polly,
I am going to give you a name because it seems cruel to call you dairy.
Stillness.
No traffic.
Nobody moving.
No shops open apart from supermarkets.
Lines separating people in supermarkets.
Only a few people allowed in at once.
No theatres, clubs or pubs open.
Whole sports seasons cancelled.
Concerts, performances cancelled.
No wearing school uniform.
No getting on the bus every morning and seeing my friends.
Weddings, family gatherings and occasions cancelled.
Funerals only for intermediate family, no other family or friends.
Death tolls rising each day.
The prime minister giving conferences every day.
Schools closed.
Work done from home.
Only key workers going to work.
Today my life has changed along with the rest of the worlds.
Mornings are pretty much the same up; awake at 6:30 not bothering to actually get out until 7:30. There is absolutely no reason to be awake at that time. Come down get breakfast same each morning (shreddies) prepare myself for the day ahead. Then my siblings and I help Mummy with the jobs every morning apart from weekends. By this time Daddy has left for work, he is still working through this because he is setting up testing stations. By 8:30 we have had breakfast and done all our jobs. Every Tuesday and Friday, Mummy and Emily do Yoga till 9:00 but every other morning we start school work at 8:30. Edward and Emily sit at the kitchen table and do their work whereas I escape to my desk with my music. We all work until about 10:30 then we have a mid-morning snack (which is always healthy). After that we go back to work until dinner time. My brother and sister don’t have work in the afternoon but I do and my mummy gets hers done then.
On a Monday and Wednesday afternoon we do P.E and spend time as a family. Every night we take it in turns to help with tea; I have made pasta, a roast dinner and many more. I am also baking a lot more. After tea we wash up then we watch telly, our favourites at the moment to watch as siblings are Hollie Hobbie, Hetty Feather and Footloose (which we watch with our daddy). Then its bed for me at 8:30 and half an hour reading each Edward goes to bed ½ an hour before me and Emily 1 hour. At the weekends we get ½ an hour extra each but we still have to read. I don’t mind this because I like reading. This is the routine we do every day it seems very boring but we do it. Even though we are at home we still have a strict timetable and our work has to be in on time. I am not very happy when I am bored. I have already reordered my desk 5 times and my bookshelf twice, I have read my way though all my books and magazines. When Mummy goes shopping she sometimes gets me a Hello to read.
At weekends we spend time as a family, every Saturday me and mummy go road biking. I have just taken up road biking while in lockdown, I find it very fun but it’s getting harder as the roads get busy. I have gone from stopping every time a car passes me to going on the main Whitby road (which was very scary). The rest of my Saturday is spent reading books. On Sunday we go mountain biking as a family. Meals on the weekend are the best because on Saturday we have homemade pizza or curry in front of the T.V and on Sunday a roast or a big heaving meal with veggies. My dad is still working through the pandemic (he is setting up testing stations for the army) when he comes home on a night mummy makes him have a shower and change his clothes.
I haven’t been out in the car for over two months if I have been out it was to walk the dog or to go biking. I think that it will be strange when I first go out in the car. I can’t wait to get back to school and been able to go to a library. I think that lockdown has made us spend more time as a family; each tea time we speak about we have learnt that day and what we think we have got out of lockdown (not much in particular apart from been bored a lot). I am not particularly worried about getting the virus because I know we are safe at home and if we stick to that then we should all be fine.
Speak Soon,
Love Olivia Grace
My account of Lockdown by Megan
Because I am starting this writeup after the lockdown started I am going to summarize the past few weeks in my current opinion.
When the lockdown started I wasn’t really that bothered. I was even looking forward to it. For me it meant I could lie-in till 8 and not have to get up at 5:30. The first week was pretty good in my opinion, because it was near the end of term and some of the teachers still hadn’t got the hang of teams yet we didn’t get that much work. Then when the Easter holidays came it started to become boring for me, because I couldn’t go and hang out with my friends. Most of the public places began to shut then they brought lockdown on us. It meant you could only go out to; buy essential supplies, have one hour of exercise a day and go to your local doctor/hospital if needed. In my opinion I thought that at least children could have longer since they can’t actually get severe problems from the virus, but everyone had to follow the rules.
The Easter holidays dragged on quite a bit so when it was time to go back to school I didn’t really mind. The first week I realised that I definitely preferred regular school than online school. I found that I didn’t exercise as much and went out of shape. This was probably because I did some sort of exercise every day like walking to the bus stop, break times, even walking from class to class. I also had a triple games lesson 2 times a week so you can imagine how my fitness level went down. I started to go out for runs but it wasn’t as fun as running at school with my friends. I also felt like we had way too much work. For instance there were subjects that I could handle like; languages, music, history, biology, art and geography, but other subjects such as science I had to work at least 2 hours extra to catch up.
At this point the lockdown was starting to get to me and I hadn’t spoken with a person face to face without a computer screen other than my family. I also had to start online music lessons because the lockdown started 3 weeks before my grade 4. It wasn’t the same doing online music lessons but I am managing it. I ended up stopping going to Sainsbury’s when my dad went because you usually had to queue to get in, and when you were in it felt really uncomfortable because people made it obvious that they were not going to come withing 2 metres of me. Now it is Tuesday, 19th of May and I am genuinely surprised that the schools haven’t opened yet. Since children do not carry it I don’t see why we cannot go back to school. Then our prime minister Boris Johnson gave an announcement on how on the 1st of June years 1+6 in primary maybe could be allowed back to school to spend time with their teachers, and possibly years 10+12. They didn’t mention about my year so right now I have no idea when I will be back at school. Hopefully it won’t be after the summer holidays because it certainly look this way right now, and I am sick of online school. I know the teachers try to make most of the lessons fun but from looking at a screen and sitting down most of the day it makes me feel very tired most of the time, so I hope schools will re-open soon. If they don’t they can at least lift lockdown in the summer holidays so I can talk to a friend within 2 metres.
The Great Lockdown by Phoebe
Weekdays:
I wake up at 8:00 and get ready. Usually I have time to watch TV till 9:00. At 9:00 I start doing “Joe Wicks” (a workout that takes place at nine every day during the week).
At 10:00 I start my work for the morning. I usually only get one subject done in the morning, but if I am lucky, I can get two done. At 12:00 I make my lunch and watched TV while I eat it. I get back to work at 1:00.
Most of the time I get two subjects done in the afternoon. School isn’t the same if I’m honest. I think a big part of school is seeing different people, and the video chats aren’t the same as meeting people in person. However, it’s not all bad, it’s quiet and most of the time I get more done than I would have in lesson. What we are doing is for the best because if we were to go to school hospitals wouldn’t be able to cope, so I am glad that we are able to learn in a safe way.
At around about 3:45, me, my sister and my mum all go out and walk the dog down the woods, at the bottom of the village. The walks take between 40 minutes to an hour to complete, it depends on where we go.
When I get home, I go on the trampoline till dinner, which we eat at about 5:00. Sometimes, I have to do a bit of extra work instead of going outside to make sure I don’t fall behind.
After dinner, I either watch TV or play on my Switch. At 8:30 I get ready for bed and by 9:00 I am in my room. I don’t really mind the lock down. I don’t really get lonely and I have lots of stuff to keep me occupied. Some people haven’t taken the lock down as well as I have. I think our prime minister needs to be clearer, so it is easier for people to stay safe and feel less panic. What also didn’t help was some people were being a bit selfish and breaking social distancing rules. This means they can endanger other people who are trying to keep healthy and safe.
Weekends:
On a typical Saturday in lock down I will wake up at about 8:30 and eat breakfast and watch TV until 9:30. At 11:00 I do one of the assignments.
At 12:00 we eat and then I play on the trampoline until around 3:00, when I go out and walk the dog. We usually go on a bit of a longer walk than we do in the week.
When we get back, we all have dinner and then I might go back on the trampoline for another half hour. Then I watch TV until 8:00. I then get ready for bed and me and my sister watch a movie together before we go to bed.
On a Sunday I get up slightly earlier and walk the dog. When I get back, I usually go on the trampoline before lunch. After lunch I get the rest of the assignments done. This takes up most of the afternoon. At about 4:00 I go out on the trampoline for an hour before dinner.
Once we have all eaten, we watch a movie together and at 8:30 I get ready for bed and after me and my sister start another movie.
Weekends aren’t as fun as they used to be, as we can’t go out to different places or eat dinner out, I also seem to have a lot of work to do in the weekend now a days. It’s also really weird not going to my cousin’s house or going to work at my nan’s farm anymore. Although because of where I live, when I go for a walk there is lots of things to do. Sometimes, my dad will take me walking down the river that surrounds the village. So, the lock down isn’t really as bad as some people think or say it is.
Lockdown Diary by William
Day 1: On the first day of Lockdown everything felt very weird, not going to school, no one going outside things just did not feel right. On the first day I really did not do much I got up went down stairs, ate breakfast, went back upstairs and watched a film. I thought to myself is this really what I am going to have to do for the next few weeks? Let dog out and went to sleep.
Day 2: Still haven’t been outside yet apparently, we are now allowed to go outside for some exercise but from what I have seen online I really do not feel like I should be doing that. I decided to sit down and watch another film… Let dog out and went to sleep.
Day 3: Now I really do not know what to do I am bored out of my mind, we are on to our last roll of toilet roll (at the moment there is none in the shops so I do not know what to do about that), luckily my Mum managed to get a good supply of hand sanitizer so we should be fine for that. Let dog out and went to sleep.
Day 4: My Mum has just received a letter from the Government saying that she is not allowed to go outside because of an illness she has had in the past year. This means we might get a bit short on food due to my Dad being a key worker and not really having enough time to go to the shops. Let dog out and went to sleep.
Day 5: The fridge is looking a lot emptier than usual. I decided to go on a walk up the field today (still not feeling like I should be doing that) I also decided to ignore the 2-metre rule and instead I stayed 5 metres away from anyone, I wanted to be as safe as possible. Let dog out and went to sleep.