Five years since first Covid lockdown: 'It was a tough time' says North East school leader
On 23rd March 2020, former PM Boris Johnson addressed the nation
We are hearing how schools across the North East and Teesside coped with the first Covid lockdown as today marks the fifth anniversary.
On 23rd March 2020, Boris Johnson, who was the Prime Minister then, made the announcement to the nation. He ordered the immediate closure of all shops selling non-essentials items, there was a ban on public gatherings of more than two people and people were told to only leave the house to shop for basic necessities and to perform one form of exercise a day. Weddings and baptisms were halted but funerals were allowed to go ahead.
Debra Walker, chief executive of Iris Learning Trust, which runs schools in Sunderland and Normanby near Middlesbrough, said: "I think we can catch up on the learning but catching up on those formative years of your life, I think it'll be around for a long time.
"The children that are in our current Year 6, they were Year 1 during lockdown and they're absolutely amazing. I mean how resilient children are. They're just amazing and they seem to have managed and caught up. The staff have been tremendous.
"They've missed out on so much and so there are gaps in learning and that will take a long time to catch up but the gaps that I'm more bothered about are those gaps in who you are as an individual and that whole emotional health and wellbeing.
"I remember being at work and Northern Ireland had locked down a week early. I remember sitting with the heads and saying 'well, we're just waiting for it really.' Reflecting back on that time, it feels like it was yesterday and then it feels like it was a million years ago. So much has happened in five years.
"Nobody was ready for it. I spoke to our heads and I said 'well, we'll just follow the instructions, follow what we have to do; we have to report every day whether we were open and we had to report how many children were in.
"Some children attended but if they were deemed vulnerable, they just rang up and said 'we don't want to come. It's too unsafe.' So we opened up and vulnerables came, not very many. It was hit and miss. Some came for the first couple of days and then like everybody, the families were spooked about being amongst other people and then of course the teachers just had to come in.
"We sort of learnt to adapt very quickly and within a couple of weeks we had a system in place where not all the staff were coming in. We had a rota in place and we had some sense of organisation in the chaos I suppose.
"It was a tough time. It took its toll on us as leaders. We were worrying about everything and everyone as well as our own families but then obviously, we had a duty to perform as a public service."
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