FIFTEEN-year-old Storm Cox was due to have work experience with the Redditch Standard until coronavirus intervened.
Undeterred, the Ridgeway Academy student told us what life is like under lockdown when the classrooms are closed.
SCHOOL has been put on hold, the learning has not, writes Storm.
I, like many others, have found myself in the most unusual of situations: having to school myself from home. I assure you, that, with all the numerous distractions surrounding you, it can be very hard to concentrate.
Perhaps the fact that your younger brother can watch the television for most of the day whilst you struggle at maths is slightly annoying! Just me?
On a more serious note, the schools are closed. We must study at home.
Having all the work set online, to be completed online, is something many pupils like myself are finding hard to adjust to.
It requires discipline – if I spend all morning on my phone, the chances of actually being able to sit and start working are quite slim.
Overall, teachers across the UK are trying their hardest to ensure students have work to do and they understand how to complete it.
Of course, this isn’t without some minor confusion here and there but this is a peculiar time for us all and we all must learn as we go along.
However, there are so many things we students are missing from school.
For me, I miss the one-to-one support in a classroom if you didn’t understand a question.
Also, what worries me greatly, is that we’re not getting our two hours of physical education per week.
Of course we can do ‘PE with Joe’ who’s getting the nation moving, that’s up to the individual to decide to join in.
I fear many won’t do anything at a time when we need to do more than ever to boost our immune systems and keep ourselves active while we spend time at home.
On to the next dire issue: Students with their GCSEs looming, whether it be this year or the next, are missing content from their courses. We are missing science experiments, cooking practical work and so on.
There are topics I should be covering in lessons now that we won’t have time to go back to before exams, ever, and that’s not the school’s fault.
Without a doubt, it will have a huge impact on my future. If students are using their time wisely and doing the learning, they’ll be alright, but it’s the ones who are not doing anything that will suffer at the end of this.
Finally, I hope that this period of our lives obliges us to rethink how we treat the planet, the animals and the people around us.
We do not know where exactly this virus originated (everyone has their own theories, I’m sure) but, being faced with a pandemic, I believe we are being reminded of the things that are important to us in life and the things that aren’t.
If there’s only one thing that I will get out of this experience, it is independence.
In a way, young adults across the UK are getting an insight into life as an adult – not relying on others to help you to do things; thinking for yourself. Aside from the learning, this experience is teaching society and myself to truly appreciate.
