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Jun 2020

Last Updated: 05/06/2020

Education

"I was bored at home" - a Harrogate 6 year old's verdict of being back at School

by Ami Miller Lifestyle Reporter

| 05 Jun, 2020

A Harrogate headteacher talks about the first week back at school and the children give their verdict of reuniting with friends

https://youtu.be/O5uzCvSMwl4

Woodfield Community Primary School in Harrogate reflects on its first week back after re-opening to limited year groups on Tuesday.

Woodfield Primary has remained open throughout the lockdown for the children of key workers. However, all pupils in nursery, reception, and year 1 are now also able to go back to school.

Jo Marwood, headteacher at the school, spoke to the Stray Ferret about how they have found the first week back:

It's definitely not the normal... We have about 25% of our children back. We are focusing on the 'bubble' element. We have no more than 10 in each group and we keep the bubbles completely seperate. They have seperate start and finish times, break times and we have two metres between each desk in the classroms. We are staggering the return of pupils, so year 6 pupils will start to come back from next week.

There are government guidelines for schools to adhere too but there is no set "uniform" approach." This means not all schools have re-opened, and the ones that are may all be taking a slightly different approach.

No school is the same... It depends on the size of the building, how many pupils you have and also how you interpret the guidelines. We are doing absolutely everything we can to ensure the safety of our pupils and staff. I dont think at the moment we could have all of the children back... We just don't have the staff or the rooms.

Despite the gradual re-opening of schools within the borough, it is up to individual parents to decide if they feel it is safe to send their children back.