Sharples has been open everyday since lockdown began to provide care for the children of Key Workers and some of our most vulnerable students. We have maintained this provision during the Easter and Whit breaks, even staying open on Bank Holidays.
This week has been special as we have finally been able to reopen the school more widely to provide face-to-face learning sessions for groups of Year 10 students.
We have been working hard over the last few weeks to put into place a meticulous plan to ensure that our students and staff are as safe as possible when they are in school. We have reorganised classrooms to ensure social distancing. We have put up numerous signs to reinforce key safety messages and installed hand sanitizer points at all entrances. In addition, we now have outdoor hand washing stations across the school site.
The return of Year 10 students has been really positive, and it has been great to see learning taking place in our classrooms once again. It feels like a small but positive step on the journey towards getting our school ‘back to normal’. We can’t wait to welcome more of you back to school over the next few months!
This is what some of our Year 10 students had to say about their return to school:
“The classrooms that we work in have been set up so that each student and teacher can be at least two metres away from each other. It is virtually impossible to forget social distancing while in school because of all of the signs and the teachers reminding us to keep our distance. It was quite obvious that the school has carefully planned out this new system which works well for the students and staff at Sharples School.
(Aston Hibbert, 10A)
“First of all, I really enjoyed being in the school environment and I felt a lot safer after I had come to school! Secondly, the lessons were amazing because they helped me to understand the things I didn’t understand at home.”
(Firdaws Adam, 10R)
“We got to speak to the teachers just like you normally would during form time before starting our lessons. That was nice because most of us haven’t seen each other in such a long time.The lessons were great: we had an hour each of Science, English and Maths. Although we have been doing live lessons, it was great to be face-to-face and be able to go into more detail with our questions and answers.”
(Darci Lomax, 10A)
“It was less of a daunting experience since there was a variety of measures put into place to guarantee we felt safe. The safety measures put in place made me feel comfortable. It was nice to be able to have some face-to-face conversations with teachers and start to return back to normal routines.”
(Sara Bhaloda, 10S)
“Before I arrived at school I was feeling a bit afraid and nervous and I think other students felt this way as well due to the fact they have not been in school for 12 weeks. We had no idea what it was going to be like! During the lesson, I did feel like I was safe and I had nothing to worry about as Ms Webster and the other teachers ensured that we were well protected.”
Bushraa Maroof,10S
To see and hear more from our students have a look at our new ‘Student Voice Blog’ on the school website.
