© Croxj 2025, Going Postal
By March 2020 I’d been doing the job for over 9 yrs.
We’d all seen the videos coming out of China, people falling down dead in the street, the welding of tower block doors and the spraying of the streets with… ‘disinfectant’… it looked terrifying… How would we handle this, this coronavirus… or to give it its official name ‘Convid 19’? Let the Gubbinsment and rNHS decide, surely they would know…
And then it started… the nightly announcement, the MSM telling us what we should do. I watched the first evening talk by BloJo and I thought then, and still believe now, ‘We’ve been sold a pup, this isn’t real.’
The Head of School called a meeting of all the staff to work out how my school, a primary, would cope with what was coming. It was looking like a shutdown… The most senior Teaching Assistant at that time asked, ‘Why are we shutting down? Every member of staff is here and there’s no kids off school with it?’
Later, I turned to Mrs Easthope, the Head, and said, ‘If you’re prepared to keep the school open you should tell the parents that and if they want to keep their kids off school that would be entirely up to them… make the parents make the decision.’ But it was never hers to make… beholden to the Local Education Authority (LEA) and, being a CofE school, the diocese.
Then the MSM took over, particularly Penis Moron… ‘Kids are the main carriers and they will kill your granny’ or some such, ‘We need to shut the schools down…’ For some illogical reason that was what the Gubbinsment did. But then the MSM started bleating on about ‘Key Workers’, i.e. rNHS, and who would look after these sainted workers’ kids. ‘We must open the schools for the “Key Workers’ kids”.’
Surely these were the kids most likely to get infected by their parents… but, what do I know…?
The Head had no choice but to shut down the school apart from those kids. She’d sent out a form for all parents to fill in as to whether their kid was eligible to attend school. She got a bit miffed that not all parents replied either way.
On the Friday before the official shutdown of the country I asked, ‘How we doing for numbers?’ She replied, ‘Haven’t had all the replies in yet but we’re looking at no more than 10.’
I’ll give all the staff their due, they prepared for doing Zoom lessons, they’d sent all the kids ‘homework’. Their hearts were in keeping the kids’ education going under what proved to be very difficult circumstances.
The first day of lockdown all staff were in, neck end of 20… only 6 kids were dropped off. Mrs Easthope had said there was a possibility of up to 20… throughout all the lockdown there was only one day, early on, when there was more than 8… It was a ‘Bring Your Kids to School’ day where the staff brought their kids in… all staff and 16 kids…
It was decided that all the staff didn’t need to be in every day. The teachers were split in two. Mrs Easthope and half the teachers would be in one week and Mark, the deputy, and the other teachers would be in the other… one week in, one week off. Because of the number of Teaching Assistants, they ended up being in 2 days over a fortnight. They were using the hall and maybe one or two classrooms. I’ll give the senior TA her due, she brought in jigsaws for… well, everybody to have a go at… even me.
The school cook was in every day at first until the numbers determined… she was wasting her time. Lancashire County Council (LCC) decided they would provide the meals for the kids, which was basically a sandwich, crisps and some fruit.
By this time, I was going in to open the doors that were needed, whip round the rooms they’d used and clean one set of toilets, back in the afternoon to whip round and lock up. About an hour each time.
And then it started… the tests came in to school, the ‘Take a pack home, if you test +ve stay off for x days…’ etc. etc.
Neither the Secretary nor I took a test, we supported each other in our refusal to conform. Also, we were the only staff to attend every day during this sh… goings on.
Come June Half-term Break the school, along with all the others, were preparing to open up. Teachers and TA’s were frantically working out how it was all going to go. How those kids that hadn’t been doing the work at home were to be helped to catch up. By the Wednesday Mrs Easthope was looking ragged but things seemed to be heading the right way until…
On the Thursday the Head of Lancashire Education Authority cancelled all openings… I thought that decision was political and bugger all to do with anybody’s health.
From then on the school was open then it was shut then open for a while then shut… The staff and kids didn’t know whether they were coming or going. It all got rather silly.
One day, when we were open, I overheard a teacher and her TA discussing that someone had contracted Covid 19 again, I turned to them and said, ‘That’ll be Convid 20 then.’ You should have seen the looks they both gave me as I sauntered off smiling to myself.
October 2020, I had a tour of the Hook Norton Brewery booked for Mrs C and me, during the Half-term break. Then the ‘Tiers’ started. Hook Norton was in Tier 1, we were in Tier 3. I checked with LP (1642again) to see if we would be refused entry. He replied with an emphatic ‘No!’ I’m glad we went and met up with Humbug Slocombe, SWMBO and Wooshy… Cheers.
We opened after the Christmas Break, 4th January 2021, the day after my 60th birthday. That afternoon, as I entered Class 6, the whole class gave me a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’. It was rather moving… the following day we were shut again.
Then came staggered drop-off times, playtimes, dinnertimes and home times.
I still have the Risk Assessment for Minimising Spread of COVID-19 Infection – January 2021 National Lockdown issued by the school, it runs to 10 A4 pages… If I remember I’ll bring it to the 2026 Bash.
Even by October 2021, reports of ‘confirmed cases of Convid 19 amongst pupils’ were being circulated to all and testing to be carried out ‘if you think you are at risk’.
Finally by 2022 people were getting fed up of it all and normal service was eventually resumed. But the damage done to the kids during that stupid time is, to my mind, both immeasurable and irreparable. God only knows how those kids are going to get on in the future…
Next time… Part 4 – Let the Party Begin
© text & images Croxj 2020
