A day in the life of a key worker during COVID-19
By Becky Frith
You may have seen me on the UKFM FB group as your mod and seen me disappear for a while, well this is why. I work in the local primary school for 6 1/2 hours a week, but thanks to this virus my hours have gone up ‘officially’ to 16 although I’m working more like 30 at the moment as a stand in teacher for other key workers. This is as well as trying to home-school my 3 children aged 14,9 and my special educational needs son who’s 7. Thankfully, I suppose, my husband’s work has closed until the virus passes.
6AM My alarm goes off, I give it a dirty look, not that my alarm can see me give it a look of disgust but if it knew what sort of day I was in for it would understand. I climb out of bed; I walk into the kitchen to make a coffee. I glance at the kitchen table, all the work I marked until 11pm still strewn all across it. I need to pack it away before the boys come down and use it as placemats to drop milky cereal on.
7AM Time to sort out my own children’s worksheets and write a timetable for them to follow:
8-9AM breakfast and get dressed
9AM Joe wicks (more for me then them)
9:30-10AM English worksheets
10-10:30AM break
10:30-11:30AM maths worksheets
11:30-11:45AM reading
12PM mummy at work daddy is in charge!!
8AM And so it begins J (7) is up and wants to play Minecraft N (9) wants to play on the iPad I tell them they can have 15 minutes each on them so I can start looking through my teacher planner see what’s in store for me today and drink my now cold coffee because I’ve been loading the dishwasher from last night and cleaning the downstairs toilet.
8:30AM The boys are still sitting there on their devices so I’m trying to bribe them with cereal and the fight to get them dressed J informs me he doesn’t need to change his pants because he done it yesterday!
9AM time for Joe Wicks , time for me to rest, or so I think, J thinks it’s hilarious how N is jumping like a kangaroo, N isn’t happy so decides he’s not doing Joe whilst anyone is watching anymore, however J is loving it pretending he’s Spider-Man.
9:30AM worksheet time, the boys seem happy at first until they realise, they haven’t got a teacher to explain it to them and have a class to bounce ideas off. I try my best to explain it but I can feel their frustration it’s not the same so 9:45 we decided to stop for now and have a chat and discuss how we feel and why.
10AM Whilst it’s break time for the boys it’s time for me to hop in the shower with help of hubby and get my daughter to wash my hair.
10:30AM Time for maths - the boys and my favourite subject, we play a maths game together.
11AM Time for a little bit of tag team for reading with my husband he’ll take one and I’ll take the other, before I need to leave for work.
12PM At work. The classes are small and combined with classes/ years combined. It’s kind of eerie. I’m in one of the infant classes. I have a wonderful teaching assistant who’s amazing with the children and will sometimes lead the class so I can go to the toilet/ need a rest/ or get a coffee.
1PM The children are allowed outside to play but we still have to observe social distancing, so no actual playing together, no using the playground equipment, if a child falls over they’re sent to the office where the staff have to wear masks and gloves to deal with them
2PM Time to talk about our feelings, I try to spend time with the children to get them talking about their feelings. Child A explains she’s worried about her dad as he’s a doctor in A&E, she hasn’t seen him in 3 days as he’s been on call. Child B explains his dad is busy as he works with ‘Mr Boris’ in London, he thinks his daddy will poorly as there’s so many sick people about. The other children though are in good spirits.
2:30PM We decide that we are going to do some art to make the family happy. The children are happy they have free reign of materials.
3:30PM Time for a break for me. I’m sore, I’m tired, I could cry it’s not just the work that’s hard going it’s dealing with the mental health side of things for both my students and me.
4PM I’m seriously lagging now. The school is open until 5 to give parents the chance to work as much as they need to. So I don’t have to stand I get the children to stand at the front in turn and sing their favourite song / nursery rhymes.
4:15PM Maths, it’s hard with having 2 years in the same class although they seem close in age their learning levels are so different you’ve got year 1’s learning 5 times tables and year 2’s learning their 7 times table. In true honesty I can’t remember my 7 ‘s let alone my 5’s!
5PM the children are collected, and I can have a sigh of relief before realising that when I get home, I’ve got to eat dinner, mark worksheets and plan for my next few days of lessons.
6PM First thing I do is give my kiddies a huge hug then get into my PJs. My husband has cooked the meals I’d batch cooked before for dinner.
7PM Go through my son’s work and mark that whilst they’re with me so we can chat about what went wrong and what went right and handing out stickers for their charts for good work. As a family we sit down and chat about our day, whilst I’m unwinding with my pain meds and a hot chocolate.
8PM Husband takes kids to bed so I can do my marking, plan for next day at work.
My pain levels are through the roof, I’m tired, my mental health isn’t good. I’m missing spending time with my own children and yet I’m pleased I’m getting to help other key workers. We are all in this together no matter if you’re a doctor or a bin man the UK needs you. Stay safe