With cases of the new Omicron variant being reported across the UK, secondary students fear how a lockdown would be detrimental to their studies and mental health.


Exam season is drawing near, and as year 10 students prepare for their mock exams and GCSEs, the fear of a lockdown lingers in the back of students’ minds, affecting some students more than others. There is no definite answer to the question: ‘will there be another lockdown?’, and this fact is worrying students more than anything. Year 10 students seem to fear a lockdown the most as the first lockdown affected them greatly.

 

Esther is a year 10 student, and she is currently undergoing preparation for her mock exams that will be taking place next year. When asked about how she felt her studies were progressing, she replied saying she felt she was “doing okay with the studies now”, however when teachers would refer back to work done in year 9, she was “more unsure as it was done in lockdown”. She expressed how she “could barely remember any of it because there was so much other stuff going on”. Esther says that another lockdown would make her do “so much worse" in her exams. Esther was on top of her work during the lockdown, even having a schedule, but stated how “it just isn’t the same as in-person school”. For Esther and a lot of students, not being able to physically be in a learning environment hinders their learning and understanding. Esther voiced her concerns on how her mocks were creeping up on her and another lockdown would only intensify the stress she was already dealing with.

 

Another year 10 student, Kanyinsola stated how another lockdown would “dramatically affect her studies”. Kanyinsola says that currently, her studies are “a bit hard to keep up with” but she is trying to cope with them. She stated that another lockdown would “greatly impact” her and her mental health and went on to explain how she “wouldn’t get the most out of her learning time”. She mentioned how her mock exams and GCSEs were getting closer and how “scary” the idea of another lockdown was. Kanyinsola expressed how she felt that she “would not be able to gain” everything she could and how “underprepared” a lockdown would leave her feeling. She even went as far as to say that she would have “no time for herself” due to the amount of catch-up she would have to do.

 

Although Anjola is in year 9, she claims to still feel the stress of her studies and voiced her worries about how another lockdown would affect her learning. Anjola said that she felt like her current studies were already going quite badly as she was struggling to focus and says another lockdown would only worsen her performance. She expressed how she was feeling stressed about the GCSE content that they were beginning to learn and voiced her worries about choosing her GCSE options. Anjola said she “wouldn’t want to choose a subject I don’t know much about.”

 

The global pandemic has affected millions of students all over the globe and has highlighted just how important school can be, so how many sacrifices do we want these children to make?