IT’S been the first full week back at school for most Year 10 pupils after three months of lockdown ­— and the headteacher of Sharples School said it was ‘brilliant’ to welcome them back.

The Bolton News:

(Sharples School)

With ‘first day’ nerves forgotten, pupils, who are now settled in, said it was great to be back among their classmates and teachers.

Around 70 per cent of Year 10 children returned to the school in Hill Cot Road on Monday after ‘meticulous’ planning to make it covid-19 secure.

The school has been open for children of key workers since lockdown measures, including holidays and bank holidays, were put into place ­— while other pupils have been enjoying learning though online live lessons and enrichment activities.

The Bolton News:

(First science lesson in three months at Sharples School)

Headteacher Ann Webster said: “The students and staff are in essence what a school is - they are the learning community. The last couple of months have been challenging as we have sought to maintain that sense of community despite the distance between us.

"I am incredibly proud of the creativity and resilience which our staff have shown; they have developed a highly efficient distance learning model in a relatively short period of time. We introduced live lessons in the first weeks of lockdown and week by week, we have increased the number on offer. Feedback from students and parents has been positive, live lessons are an effective way to motivate students and to keep their learning on track.”

She added: “Planning for the return of Year 10 students has been meticulous. The measures we have put into place are many and varied, for example, placing extensive social distancing signs around the school and installing a number of additional handwashing points across the site.

“It has been brilliant to welcome our first groups of Year 10 students back this week and to see lessons taking place in our classrooms. It feels like a small but very positive step on the journey to getting Sharples School back to normality.”

The Bolton News:

(Artist Kate Brinkworth giving a lesson)

During lockdown the school has been holding lessons using Google Meet and at times had a 100 students watching the lessons. The school also used Twitter to reach out to leaders in their fields to stage enrichment online activities for their pupils including a live art lesson for Year Nine with acclaimed artist Kate Brinkworth, who dropped in to show students her home studio.

“We have had an artist, engineer, they have all come on and delivered lessons,” said Caroline Molyneux, deputy headteacher. “We took full advantage of lockdown to approach them.”

And to welcome the pupils back, Miss Molyneux composed a special science lesson to sing to them.

The school is also staging online activities for the new Year Seven who will start in September to make them feel more comfortable ­—including a quiz for families.

“Over the next week, we are hoping to increase the number of Year 10 attending,” said Miss Molyneux.

Pupils say the new safety measures are working well.

The Bolton News:

“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 obvious that the school has carefully planned this new system, which works well for the students and staff at Sharples School,” said Aston Hibbert.

Firdaws Adam added: “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.”

Darci Lomax said it was great seeing her friends and teachers. She said“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 have not 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.”

Sara Bhaloda and Bushraa Maroof said all nerves disappeared when they entered school

Sara said: “It was nice to be able to have some face-to-face conversations with teachers and start to return back to normal routines.”

Bushraa said: “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."