I got a shock when the schools closed so suddenly in March

I was expecting them to close at some stage as I had been watching the news. I was aware of the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in Ireland. However, I was expecting them to announce on Thursday that the schools would close on the Friday. So, it was a shock to realise that no it was from the end of that school day. I did not have time to process it. I couldn’t explain to the children that it would be the last day of school for a while.

It took me a while to get my head around it. The school bags were left unopened on the floor and I intended to do the schoolwork the following week (though I did remember thankfully to take out the dirty lunchboxes!).

The following week my five-year-old son had a temperature. I didn’t think much of it as he’s prone to them. All my time was taken up by looking after him, along with working from home and keeping up with running the house – washing clothes, food shopping, cooking, cleaning the kitchen. So, schoolwork was again left aside.

The week after the rest of us in the house got sick, including me. My husband was bad, an extremely high fever and was in the bed a lot. I did ring the GP in case we needed to be tested but we didn’t meet the criteria at the time as none of us had a cough or difficulty breathing. We did isolate just in case though. I was so tired that week.

I was so worried one of the nights – my eldest daughter and my husband both had high temperatures and I was scared that they’d both need hospital. And I was worried what would I do with my two other children if I had to bring her. It’s not like I could leave them with anyone else with all the restrictions. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that but it’s easy to worry. Once more schoolwork was not done.

The following week there was still no sign of going back to school. We were all getting better, but it was all I could do to keep up the housework and working from home.

Then we were into the Easter holidays. So obviously no schoolwork was done!

The announcement was initially for a two-week school closure. I did expect that to be extended until after the Easter holidays. It wasn’t really a big surprise when they announced the first extension.

But when the second extension came it was a surprise. I was still hoping that they would get back to school soon. The schoolwork kept coming from the teachers. But I only got to do a small bit of it. I was working, some weeks I had to work extra days. And as they’re only five and six I couldn’t just give them a list to get on with it themselves. Then there was cooking and feeding everyone, and the cleaning up afterwards. And don’t forget the never-ending laundry! And the food shopping.

There was pages and pages of work every week and no time to do it! And days I did have off and I had some spare time the kids wanted fun, not work. Running in the garden, kicking a ball, playing on the trampoline, hide and seek.

So, the weeks went past. There was talks of a day a week in June, but that didn’t happen.

Now as we come to the end of the school year we look to September. I really hope they are back full time by then, once it is safe to do so. Because right now I am banking on them catching up then. If not, not sure how we will manage.

I don’t want my children missing out on their education. But I am not their teacher. I am their mother.