Children (and parents) have been getting to grips with home schooling and online learning. Here, 10-year-old Viva Sastry – a South Woodford Young Writers Club member – recounts an imaginary day from her lockdown diary
6am. Wake Up. Snoring coming from the next room. Parents asleep – check. Activate plan breakfast. It’s Saturday. Day 40 of COVID-19 lockdown (I think).
6.15am. Breakfast eaten. Time to activate pla… Oh no! Today’s the day my new tutor is coming. I just remembered! I am not looking forward to meeting him on Zoom. Better hide.
7am. Tucked behind the sofa. I’ll be safe for the rest of the day at least.
9am. Discovered by two very angry specimens of Homo sapiens sapiens (aka parents) and dragged to the laptop.
9.30am. The tutor is here. Funnily enough, he’s wearing robes and is carrying a wand. This might not be so horrible after all. Maybe my parents have decided to teach me magic. He’s called Mr Periwinkle.
9.45am. Apparently another tutor – my real tutor – has turned up. My parents have no idea about Mr Periwinkle.
10am. This is terrible. I have two tutors apparently on the same Zoom call. One is trying to teach me how to charm spaghetti, and the other is telling me what 12 cubed is. It’s chaos!
10.30am. Mr Periwinkle has told me to get some pasta from the kitchen to practice spaghetti charming. Mr Real Tutor told me to sit quietly and stop “looking like someone slapped you around the face with spaghetti”.
10.35am. I have two angry tutors on my hands. One is telling me to stop looking so nervous, and the other is asking me why I am not going to get the spaghetti.
11am. Things are getting out of hand. Thankfully, Mr Periwinkle says goodbye and goes off to eat lunch (I think he’s in a different time zone). This means my other tutor can finally get me to recite all the cubed numbers up to 13 cubed. Then, Mr Periwinkle is back, and the normal one leaves, and I can finally practice my spaghetti spell.
12.30pm. Lunchtime. Cheese sandwiches with a bag of crisps, chocolate and two oranges. I helped myself to some dates in the kitchen.
1pm. Meditation with Mr Periwinkle and PE with the tutor. Next, we have magical animals with Mr Periwinkle and zoology with the normal tutor. This turned out okayish, except for the time when the normal tutor asked me what animal was believed to have healing properties. I answered “unicorn” and the tutor blew up. Apparently the answer was armadillo. Oh dear, this day is too hectic for my liking!
3pm. Thank goodness this is over. Wait, what’s that? Oh, it’s both of the tutors saying goodbye… What?! “See you tomorrow!?” Oh no… And today was only Monday!
