GCSE pupils open time capsule Year 7 letters to self

Four years ago, while England began to leave the latest Covid-19 lock, the teacher Damaris Bateson asked the new 7th grade student to write letters to their future selves.

In the letters they opened before sitting their exams, they thought about what the world would look when they sat down.

Are counter masks still needed? Do they reach their hopes and dreams?

At that time, 11 -year -old Charlie had a question in the front ranks of his mind.

“A childish question, but do you have a girlfriend yet?” Now 16, Charlie gets angry while reading her letter.

It will be among hundreds of thousands of students in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on Thursday Get GCSE Results.

After years of deterioration from the pandemi, it points to an important milestone in his education.

Despite the difficulties he faced at the time he started secondary school, he wrote about his hopes to study at Columbia University in New York, Vanessa.

“Don’t let anyone [sic] Take you away from your work, but don’t forget to have fun. “

Vanessa confesses that he argued with his teachers when he started in secondary school, “because I didn’t take my own way.”

“But now I respect everyone,” he says as he gets into a shining smile.

“I understand I’m not the only person in this world.”

Classmate said to the future, “Tell the grandmother and grandmother you love them every day.”

“He’s loved and keep making it wonderful,” he wrote.

“Don’t be negative, think positive and succeed.”

Eve’s letter ends with two questions with a tick box for yes or no.

“Are you still happy?” And “Do you still want to be successful?”

Four years later, the unchanging positivity continues.

“Absolutely,” he says, the fingertips are safely touching the boxes marked as ‘y’.

The letters were written on March 12, 2021, the second day at school after the last long locking.

Ms. Bateson, the president of the year, asked the students to write their time capsule letters after realizing that their students’ transition from primary school to secondary school was “really broken”.

“Many have been out of school for months at this point, or he says.

“It was a quite isolating experience.”

Charlie’s letter “I will test anywhere positively” explains how she was scared, her classmate Fisayomi “how hard not to see her friends and the family.”

“The world is not so good right now,” Fisayomi said in 2021.

“I hope when I am in 11 years [Covid] gone. “

Now he does what he loves, playing football with his friends Gabriel and Daniel, whom he has known since he was three years old.

However, all secondary school education of this year’s GCSE cohort was shaped by the effect of pandema.

First, they spent months learning from the house for months.

Then they returned to the school with ‘blisters’ with restrictions on which parts of the school building could enter and socialize.

Fisayomi says that they will spend all days “just sitting in the same room”.

“You will have the same class for each subject. You will not move all day.”

In some classes, windows were left open to reduce the risk of infection.

“Everyone was wearing their coats because he was freezing,” Charlie says.

“It was just strange.”

They weren’t alone. Schools in the UK had to adapt to the constantly changing COVID restrictions in 2020 and 2021.

Now reflecting Fisayomi, the year group in the middle of a pandema in the middle of the secondary school to adapt to life “perseverance” said.

“It was difficult to continue and continue, or he says.

Next month, the Covid-19 investigation will investigate the effect of pandema on children and young people.

When he asked the students to write his letters in 2021, he wanted to instill “trust, motivation and belief in self”.

However, the letters this year, shortly before the GCSE exams to visit the GCSE re -visiting the ambitions they have for themselves, he said.

“For some, it was: ‘My young self believed that I could do it.’

“I liked to see their reactions and I am extraordinarily proud of them.”

Vanessa still wants to study architecture at Columbia University and hopes to be a lawyer.

Eve does not know exactly what to do after GCSES, but “100% stable”, he will be successful, no matter what he does.

As for Charlie, history plans to examine A levels in English literature, French and Latin areas – but still looking for a girlfriend.