Pupil’s Voice-Their Distance Learning Experience

My Lockdown Experience

During lockdown i’ve been playing alot of games on the ps4 andbeen playing outside alot too with my dogs. Ive been helping my mam a lot too with jobs and shopping. I learned how to cook pasta bake. Im looking forward to seeing my friends and playing with them. Im also looking forwrd to going to the beach in youghal and for the swimming pool to open. I hope corona virus will be gone soon.

By Owen

My Lockdown

Every morning I get up early, log on and quickly get my maths done. After that I do the rest of the stuff during the day which is pretty easy.
Also sometimes I would go running at least 1km around the village most days.
Some other things I like to do are my guitar lessons, art and reading.
I know there were a lot of bad things with covid and everything, but there were a few good things like the friday zoom meetings that I would enjoy. I also got a completely new desk and chair which are both a lot more stable than the first one.
With all those out the way there were lots of bad things as well we couldn’t go on holiday again. I also missed not seeing friends.
At times, I have felt happy and sad at different times.
Some of the things I look forward to is getting back swimming, cinema, going further than 5km, GAA and just generally getting outside again.
By Matthew

LOCKDOWN
In lockdown Ive been trying to do things to stay busy even though I feel like
there’s nothing to do, but during lockdown I still did some fun things. My
friends and I facetime a lot more just to keep in touch and even if you were
just facetiming when I was emptying the dishwasher or cleaning our room it
was still a lot of fun to just see a few of us on a call.
Ive also been kept busy with a bit of school work to do every day and it’s just
something to do for a few hours instead of watching tv of going on my
phone.
I also really enjoyed listening to music and expanding my taste in different
genres during lockdown which was one of my ways of escaping into my own
world.
Another way Ive been escaping into a world of my own is by reading which I
have always enjoyed. I re-read the Harry Potter series many times during
lockdown (and before lockdown) because I simply can’t get bored of it. I have
also been reading fantasy books about children exploring into a land of fairy
tales and classics as well as I have read lots of books based on true stories
which I didn’t start reading until last year, of children growing up in a war or
stories from the perspective of different people.
One of the most recent things Ive been doing is learning how to play the
ukulele which has been challenging but lots of fun!
In lockdown I enjoyed spending time with my family and getting more times
to got to the woods of hiking and spending the day at the beach.
I also loved buying things to send over to family in different countries even
though I still missed them a lot.
There were also lots of things I disliked about lockdown like not being able to
see anyone or go to school. Or staying at home and not even going on
summer holidays even thou9gh we went on a few trips around Ireland, but
one of the things I have hated the most recently apart from missing people is
boredom.
There are still many tasks that I still find difficult during lockdown like having
a routine since there’s not much to do so it’s hard to wake up early in the
mornings and go to sleep late at night.
#
Another thing I found challenging was just having to stay home with my
family and as much as I love them sometimes it gets tiring of only seeing
them and no one else.
I’m looking forward to go back to school and see everyone again and have
lots of fun visiting places when this is all over.

By Carla

My Lockdown Experience
Like everyone my lockdown experience has been extremely different to what
was once normal life to us. Even though lockdown has been quite boring at
times it has made us more aware of the things we took for granted before
which we would love to be doing now.
This year and last year we had to move from going to school normally to
having to go to school online. Which is harder for the pupils and teachers at
every school. As soon as we moved to online school it became more difficult to
communicate between our teachers and friends like we used to do. Overall, I
much prefer going to school normally.
Another thing that happened during lockdown was that we were not able to
meet our family and friends. Although we were able to use texting, phone calls
and video calls to communicate with people it was not the same as being able
to meet them in person.
Although the lockdown has been tough at times. It has also made me more
independent when it comes to schoolwork and has helped me to improve my
I.T. skills. This will help me next year in secondary school.
My hobbies have also changed over lockdown before I was used to going to
dance classes for most of the week whereas now I have become a lot better at
baking.
So even though lockdown is hard it has helped me to understand not to take
everything for granted!
By Éabha

My Lockdown/Distance Learning Experience
So far, I’ve really enjoyed Distance Learning, it’s given me a bit
of structure. I obviously miss seeing my classmates everyday
but I can still see them on the Zooms we have every Friday.
These Zooms are really fun. I’ve learned a lot since Christmas
with the projects and the fun activities. Learning from home
has been fun and manageable thanks to the fun activities and
the instructional videos that are sent out every day. Seesaw is a
great app which makes everything a lot easier as everything is
together in one place.
During Lockdown I’ve taken up some new hobbies to keep me
busy along with some hobbies I had before Lockdown. I’ve been
drawing and painting a lot recently which is a good activity to
do while the weather is so bad. I still enjoy playing video games,
Minecraft, Roblox and Animal Crossing being my favourites.
Before Lockdown, I was learning French on an app called
Duolingo and that was really fun so now I’m learning German
too. I also use it to help me get better at Irish. I practice piano
every day and I recently learned how to use a sewing machine,
so I’m having lots of fun doing small sewing projects with scrap
fabric. Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been running a lot.
I’m lucky to live so close to Kilbarry Wood, every day that my
Dad is home we run a few laps of it with our dog Jane.
Even though I’m really looking forward to Lockdown being over
so I can go back to school and see my friends again, I still enjoy
these days and like online learning a lot.
By Cathy

MY LOCKDOWN

During the Christmas holidays it was announced that we would not be going back to school as planned. Ireland went into another lockdown to reduce the spread of the third wave of Covid-19.

Since January, every morning Mr. O’Sullivan puts up our schoolwork online on seesaw. Seesaw is an online learning app that helps connect teachers and students. Once we have done our work on seesaw, we take a picture of it and send it to our teacher. I think that seesaw is easy to use and good for our homework.

Everyday in lockdown my family and go for a long walk. While we are on the walk my sister collects pinecones and I try to take pictures of different types of birds. My dog Prince also comes on these walks with us and at times scare the birds away.

I also picked up baking during Lockdown. One of the first things I made was a loaf of white bread and a loaf of soda bread. The white bread crumbled to dust when It was touched but, the soda bread was very fluffy and tasty. Other things I attempted to bake was cake, banana bread, pancakes, and biscuits.

My overall experience of lockdown is positive. I get to spend more time with my family and do my hobbies like baking and gaming. The negative side of lockdown is not being able to see my grandparents or my friends. I miss going out to restaurants and going out to the shops.  These are things I will look forward to doing again in the future.

By Caolan

Life in Lockdown

Everyone’s lockdown experience is different some people found it nice to have time off work and school for a while and some found it boring and they had nothing to do. I found it nice at first especially in the first lockdown when I could see people outside because it was mostly sunny but during the second and third it got a lot more boring because there wasn’t as much to do. I find it really annoying having to wear a mask in shops and when I’m in town but I’ll put up with it to protect others and help stop Covid-19. The sanitising is also really annoying but after this I will probably wash my hands and sanitise a lot more often. It can also be really annoying not being able to see loved ones and friends or give anyone a hug. During the first lockdown I started baking I made, cakes, buns, cookies and brownies. I also read a lot of books when I was bored. Over Christmas we made the dinner and played a board game. Even though lockdown isn’t that bad at times it would be nice for this to end and be able to see everyone again and get back playing sport and going up to Cork.

By Emma Louise

My lockdown.

I do my homework in the morning or afternoon and then I watch tv or do something else. Then when its dark outside my dad and I go for a run and when we come home we have our dinner. I don’t really like doing the homework in the morning. I like going for a run at night because there isn’t a lot of people running or walking and you can’t see how long the road is and we run 4km.

Aideen