Sophia Pisano: Covid and Chelmsford High School

The picture shows Peter Kemp chairing a meeting for the first time as President. As the lockdown is continuing the meeting had to be held online. He admitted to some nerves beforehand but all went smoothly.

Our speaker was Sophia Pisano. She was a pupil at the Chelmsford County High School for Girls from 2014 until this year. She is also the most recent President of the school’s Interact Club, which we sponsor. Unfortunately owing to the Covid crisis the most recent Interactors were unable to recruit their successors as they normally would have done. Sophia said she would try to see what could be done to restart the Club.

She told us how the High School has coped during the Covid lockdowns. It was not only learning that went online. Mock examinations were also held online. On the first occasion the school did this by sending the papers to the students, who were told to scan their answers and return them to the school within a week. Later, when the tests would feed into the students’ A Level results, they were sat under “examination conditions” so far as that could be done remotely. The students were sent the papers, which they had to sit straightaway online with their cameras and microphones live. The answers again had to be canned but in this case returned to the school immediately.

There has been a return to the school but restrictions apply. Years 7 and 8 students remained in their form rooms and the various subject teachers moved round the school to them. The older age groups did move from class to class but under the supervision of the prefects, of whom Sophia was one. A one-way system was put into operation.

The school canteen continued operating. The students whose form rooms were on the ground floor were allowed to go to the canteen to collect their meals. For the students with form rooms on the two upper floors the meals were left outside the rooms.

Sophia was a very interesting speaker. From what she said the High School coped very well with the Covid restrictions. She now hopes to go to the University of York, where we are sure she will do well.