No more walks in the park, systematic disinfection of equipment after use, mask and gown for teaching staff… Mélanie, teacher in a kindergarten class, tells us about her exhausting first week back at school.
Deconfinement began on Monday May 11 and some schools have reopened. Mélanie, kindergarten teacher in a private Montessori school, takes stock of her first week of recovery.
“We reopened the school on Monday May 11. It is a private school so we could have chosen to remain closed: some establishments Montessori do not reopen until May 25. On the other hand, we have decided not to resume English lessons for children outside school. To prepare for the start of the school year, my colleague and I came for a day the week before deconfinement to clean the whole school and remove the equipment that would be too complicated to disinfect as the children use it.
Currently, two of my colleagues have not yet returned. One is at risk and the other has to take care of her children for whom school has not yet resumed. Regarding the students, who are between three and five years old, out of twenty, only nine have returned to class (there is only my class in the school). We should get one more next week. Ten children is the acceptable limit for us because there is a rule to respect according to the number of square meters per class.
Some families have moved, some parents prefer to keep their children at home and others are stuck abroad. We have many expatriates among our students: some families had returned abroad to be confined with their loved ones and could not return to France because there is no plane.
For some little ones, the return to school was difficult because they had been with their parents for two months. There is even a child who had only spent two weeks at school before the start of confinement, he was very afraid to come back. Not to mention that seeing us, some children were frightened by the masks and gowns.
More walks in the park
Regarding the organization to fight against Covid, we have limited the number of objects going back and forth between school and home. Children no longer carry notebooks and are no longer allowed to bring toys or stuffed animals from home. As for the parents, they can no longer attend their child’s birthday party in class or drive him to the school. We have put a safe distance in front of the door and we try to stagger the arrivals so that they do not cross too much in the morning.
Once in the school, the little ones must immediately take off their coat and their shoes in the changing rooms. They put on slippers and we hang the coats ourselves to prevent them from crossing each other. As soon as they are ready, they will wash their hands. Before, we had classic towels. Now they wipe their hands with disposable paper towels. However, we cannot ask them to put on masks or put gel on them. In terms of distances, we have redesigned the space in the classroom to keep a minimum of one meter in each place, but sometimes they cross paths next to the shelves and they like to watch what the others are doing. When they do, they keep their hands well behind their backs.
As for breaks, we used to take the children out to the park and walk around the pond with a rope, but that would require too much organization. The rope would have to be disinfected each time and the children would touch everything outside. So we replaced the walk with small games or yoga.
Difficult to prevent children from cuddling us
Despite all this organization, the distances remain complicated to respect. Children stick together to tell each other stories, want to cuddle and cuddle with us too. On the first day of school, some parents put their child directly in our arms when the latter was crying. During the day, when the little ones are upset, we can’t send them out and tell them to fend for themselves. They try to climb on our knees and cling like cute little koalas.
To protect ourselves, we have blouses with long sleeves that go down to the knee, it covers the clothes. For now, it’s fine because it’s not too hot, but I hope the temperatures will not increase too much. As for the masks, the school provided us with surgical masks that we change every four hours. So we use two a day but that doesn’t include those used on the way to and from school.
Overall, this first week went well. I am happy to see the children again and they are delighted to find their friends and their work. But this new mode of operation is exhausting. As we have chosen to keep equipment so that they can continue to do fun things — we can’t just tell them to color on photocopies — we have to disinfect each object after use. They take a new one every two minutes. So it never ends. As I am the only one trained in Montessori and able to disinfect the equipment, I have to take care of everything: I spend my days cleaning the equipment, the tables, the toilets… My hands are in ruins from washing. If the 20 children had returned, it would have been impossible!
Stressed parents
We have decided to keep the material but I wonder how it goes in classic kindergarten. They took away all the children’s toys and during recess it’s one child per square and they can’t move. It is absolutely sad! In such conditions, I wonder if going back to school isn’t more traumatic than anything else for them.
This is why I understand the parents who have chosen not to put their children back in school. In kindergarten or primary, there is no academic delay. And, we spend so much time sanitizing everything that the kids are clearly not moving forward now. Also, if the parents are very stressed to bring their child back, it is useless. But if, on the contrary, they are tired of having them in their hands at home, it may not be so bad that they put them back to school. You have to think about everyone’s psychological well-being.
With us, the parents who brought their children back are very grateful that we have reopened. They are happy that their children find their friends but still quite stressed. The first day, before the end of the day, we sent them an email to let them know that the start of the school year had gone very well. We got feedback right away, it allowed them to come back calmly in the evening, knowing already that there had been no problem. Every day they ask us with a worried look if everything is fine and if no one is sick. This week, a child whose birthday we celebrated sneezed on his cake. I hope it will be fine… It is true that one quickly becomes paranoid in such a context…”
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