Reconnecting with friends and fun

Coming out of lockdown and social distancing brought all the children back to school after being away from their friends for too long. Director of Schools, Gerard Mowbray, rightfully points out that during this time school should be a place of reconnection, safety and fun. So, at Our Lady of Victories, Shortland we decided to hold two events in the past month to reconnect, feel safe and have a bit of fun.

PJs and gumboots

First was a Vinnies “PJ and Gumboots Day” to provide a chance for the children to feel that staying in their pyjamas most of the day during home learning was not such a terrible thing. But who said it was anyway? The children and staff lounged their time at school and spent a safe day snuggled in their winter flannels. With a small donation from each child we managed to raise a bit of cash to support the local St Vincent de Paul Winter Appeal. But most importantly, we had fun.

Sports fun

For our second activity, the whole school reconnected together. After the COVID-19 lockdown and the social distancing, we wanted to make the children feel part of the “whole” community again. What better way than to have a fun day that provided that opportunity?

We had six activities, all aimed at having fun, with mixed groups of children from each class rotating through “old time” activities. These included egg and spoon races, sack races, three-legged races, parachute, and others. Not quite the athletics carnival that we missed out on, but fun enough. The Year 6 children did a wonderful job organising the activities, equipment and leading the groups in the fun times.

The only thing missing at our events were the parents. As a school, we love having them involved in our activities and their absence was certainly highlighted on these occasions.

Our Lady of Victories is a small family-oriented place, and not having them join in the fun was sad. We look forward to having them back in some form soon as we move towards a “whole” reconnected, safe place with lots of fun.

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