Swadlincote School Makes Beach Boys Video For Students To Show How Much They Miss Them During Lockdown

The Pingle Academy in Swadlincote has put together a video for pupils with pictures of staff members set to a Beach Boys classic.

It was the idea of Assistant Principal Deb Holland who wanted to 'humanise' the Coronavirus lockdown and put the sequence together herself.

The video shows some familiar faces from the school's staff with God Only Knows playing alongside.

And Deb told Swadlincote Nub News: "I wanted the staff to connect with the students and show them how much they mean to us and that we care and miss them."

But she also believes that the closing of schools has actually moved them forwards - and 'revolutionised' education in terms of using modern technology to continue to teach children.

She realises however that everyone needs some sort of day to day contact - which is why she made the video.

Deb said: 'We're quite active on social media anyway and we wanted to connect with the pupils during this time,

"And we've been doing sporting challenges and quizzes for them.

"But with the video, we wanted to do something nice and humanise the situation to show the pupils they are important to us.

"The faces on the video are all members of staff. There are teachers, teaching assistants, support staff, everyone's included.

"I sent a message out asking them to send a photo and lots of them did.

"But I had to teach myself how to put the video together to be honest.

"I had a go and managed it. It was easy really. It's amazing what you can do when you have time"

Deb said the Beach Boys song fitted in with the mood of the message the school wanted to send to the pupils.

She added: "It just sounded appropriate, it was a song I know, but I didn't think many of the students would know it.

"The lyrics fitted even though it's not a modern song."

But Deb says the current situation proves that the education system has not shut down.

All teachers continue to work from home with a rota system in place to supervise the students of key workers still attending school.

She said: "It's revolutionised education at the drop of a hat.

"Things are still going on pretty much as they did before - I'm still teaching my lessons, but using technology.

"Everything that goes on in a school is continuing, but in a different way.

"We've adapted to the situation. The support mechanism is still in place.

"It's miraculous how it's happened almost instantly.

"In terms of IT we were ready anyway, but now we're using it more than we would.

"If this had happened when I was at school, then that would've been it.

"There are lots of things the students can do online and it's remarkable what we're seeing in such a short space of time.

"Education has moved on 10 years in just a few weeks.

"You'd never have imagined you could do this - teaching remotely.

"But you can never replace the social interaction between students and teachers.

"I don't think you would see any school where things have ground to a halt.

"Why wouldn't we continue to teach where we can?"