It’s Mrs Milner here, reporting from an empty classroom, somewhere in the woods, somewhere by the sea at Fyling Hall.

Firstly, happy new year to you all! I hope you have all enjoyed the Christmas break and are now returning to your fitness apps to work off those Lidl’s finest mince pies and that extra helping of turkey curry you somehow found a space for. It’s goodbye to recipes to use up leftover Christmas turkey, and hello to Joe Wicks and fat-free salads. Maybe just one more wafer thin mint wouldn’t harm…

Speaking of returning to apps, students at Fyling Hall are back on their Microsoft Teams apps as we are teaching online again now that schools have had to close once more. Classrooms may be empty but lessons are back in full swing over Teams. I have been so impressed by how our students take the new routines in their stride and just crack on with their virtual lessons – as one of my previous students used to say: “We don’t stop at Fyling Hall, miss!”

I leave you with some ‘before’ and ‘after’ lockdown pictures so you can see how quiet it is when there are no pupils at school. The ‘before’ pictures show what you get if you cross Year 9 with the last lesson before the Christmas holidays and the novel ‘Lord of the Flies’. We had so much fun acting out scenes from the classic Golding novel and making props.

Let’s hope that the ‘after’ picture of my very empty classroom is not like that for long. Reporting from an empty classroom is certainly not ideal! Fingers crossed I see you all again very soon.

Mrs Natasha Milner, Teacher of English