Hi everyone hope you’re all ok?
Around this time each year my customers start to ask me what I make for teachers and teaching assistants as end of term thank you gifts?
I was having a chat with my sister-in-law Val, who is a teacher, earlier this week and I was enquiring about what she would normally receive from her pupils at the end of term.
I enquired as to the presents that she loves to receive and the ones she gets in abundance I could almost guess what she was going to say, she does get an awful lot of flowers, sweets and chocolates, wine and sometimes smellies.
I asked her about this last year and how schools have all had to adapt and cope with the pandemic. I took notes so that I could write this blog as I found it very interesting.
I had absolutely no idea as to what this last year would entail for our schools, teachers and pupils and it has been very challenging indeed.
Val has had no time off this year and has worked right through including the half term breaks and the Easter holidays as she has been looking after vulnerable children and of course key workers children also. She tells me that it has been an absolutely terrifying time for everybody working in our schools. No one knew anything about the virus initially and of course whether you might die from it if you caught it which was extremely worrying .
During the first lockdown she recalls not taking her coat off in class as she was so worried and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, washing hands keeping everything spotlessly clean and of course there were no face masks initially and they had to wait for their PPE.
Even today she says she is still washing hands reminding the children to wash their hands and cleaning constantly, everything has had to change in her classroom.
She feels happier that she has had both jabs now and that they have a system to work to, cleaning equipment and the PPE to do their job.
I can’t imagine how awful it must be to wear aprons gloves masks and visors for hours while trying to do every day tasks with small children. She praises the children for adapting brilliantly.
She told me that her school has a full class in isolation at the moment, they are 7 to 8 years old and although only one child has tested positive the whole class has now had to isolate at home.
Val has isolated three times in all with different children testing positive for coronavirus.
She also had to do the online learning both last year and earlier this year and this has been especially difficult as she has already had children in the classroom in front of her and had to make time also to do online classes with the children that were working from home.
She said it’s lovely to have the kids back and full classes but even then there are things to deal with for example, her class full of children is classed as a bubble and as such they start at different times to the other classes, have separate breaks with their own play area,they have their own dinner lady and go and collect their dinner and come back and eat in the classroom segregated from the rest of the school.
There have been no assemblies and no get-togethers where the whole school come together to celebrate certain occasions.
So with all of her information in my head I have designed a couple of new teacher gifts which I have on my website and are made and ready for the parents of all of the children who are so lucky to have their teachers supporting them and who have been there for the past year to support them.
I have listened to what she has said and I do believe that my gifts will be really well received as a personalised gift comes from the heart and a bunch of flowers just come from the petrol station or the local shop.
We do owe a massive debt of gratitude to our teachers and I hope that I have given anyone who doesn’t have any children at school these days a little insight as to what they have had to endure and here’s hoping that they all get some really super gifts as a thank you’s at the end of this coming summer term.
Hope you’re all enjoying this beautiful weather and the glorious month of June
Sending lots of love
Lindsey X