Tracey
Tracey is a secondary school teacher and the SENCO (Special Educational Needs Coordinator) at her school on the South Coast of England. She is married to a teacher and has two boys who are in year 7 and 9 at a different school from her.
Tracey sitting in front of a fireplace working on a laptop whilst her son asks her a question.
Tracey taking a phone call whilst sat on her bed because it is quiet.
“Not seeing family and friends. You know, we’re very, very sociable. I’ve really enjoyed the time we have with the children. But actually not seeing my mum, missing out on seeing parents in-law, and, and not seeing friends. That’s been really difficult.
On a day-to-day basis I think, I’ve been really impressed by how independent our boys have been. Year 8 homework was a real battle and a real struggle and he doesn’t write [but] he’s now developed really good keyboard skills. So suddenly what was so difficult for him is now much easier. And I’ve been really proud and impressed of how well he’s moved forwards.
What I’ve found quite hard is when the media has portrayed, two or three weeks ago, four weeks ago maybe, lots of really negative pictures, ‘teachers just need to go back to work’, and were very critical of teachers. And I felt actually I’ve been working the whole time and I would love to say, ‘furlough me and I will spend this twelve weeks working with my children’, because I know because of my particular skillset that if I were to give them twelve intensive weeks of home-schooling, that in terms of their literacy development, we could really push them forwards.
And so it’s quite hard feeling that people assume that because I’m a teacher I can home-school the boys and, and don’t get that I can’t, and actually it would be lovely to be able to.”