First Day Back At School…

It is more than 7 months since we were last in a school delivering our Safe Hands programme. So Monday 19 October was very much like a first day. The Royal School, in Wolverhampton, has been the first school in the city to welcome us back. Prior to our visit we were sent the schools risk assessment advising the new arrangements for visitors to school which included the now obligatory face covering, mask or shield, and maintaining social distance. We were also required to complete a questionnaire about our health and potential exposure to people who have tested positive for Covid-19. That done we were ready for our first day back in a school setting.

It was lovely to see the pupils again. Covid-19 had brought a halt to the delivery of our Safe Hands Programme. This session was administrative in nature because we wanted to find out how lockdown had been for them and what additional topics they may wish to explore as a consequence of their lockdown experience. Relationships, which forms part of our core offer, came up time and time again. Relationships with friends and families featured quite strongly with many pupils saying in the main that they had grown closer to their families during lockdown but a number of relationships with friends had suffered and now cease to exist.

There was a desire too to look at racism, homophobia, peer pressure, anxiety, having uncomfortable conversations and bullying on social media which we will cover in the remaining sessions.

Our own anxieties about going back into school turned out to be baseless….