First of all we hope that you had a restful, well deserved Easter break (however strange it may have been). Life in lockdown is certainly something we never would have imagined this time last year – none of us were prepared for how we might respond to this crisis. But out of this uncertainty and time of trial, our school has continued to come together and showcase just how awesome our community is. As a new term of home schooling begins, we wanted to bring together a selection of amazing things that our staff and students have been doing over the past few weeks – the dedication of all our members has been a joy to witness so we hope that you find their stories just as inspiring.
Eddies pupils and staff have been starting our school days positively with PE lessons from Joe Wicks. Mr Morgan and @Eddies_PE have been motivating us every step of the way to stay active and healthy which is now more important than ever before! A friendly bit of sportsmanship rivalry sprung from Mr Taylor who started the toilet roll challenge and was beaten by Logan O from 8M with an amazing score of 17! How many can you do? Now our fitness enthusiasts have moved on to the 5k challenge being encouraged by Mr Taylor and Mr Morgan who have now challenged all pupils and staff to get active and join in! If you have gotten involved, tweet Mr Morgan your 5K videos @Eddies_PE to get the recognition you deserve! In addition to these sporting highlights, Ashton Bears, our local Rugby Club did a fantastic video at the beginning of lockdown taking part in the isolation challenge of throwing toilet rolls as rugby balls to create a brilliant team compilation! Many of our pupils took part in it so make sure you visit their twitter page to watch! (@AshtonBears)
Eddie's Keeping Active
The school Chaplaincy group, led by Maria our Chaplain have been praying virtually over email every morning at the usual time we would meet for Morning Prayer – it has been a really great way to keep in touch with the group and maintain our sense of routine and normality during these uncertain times. Our prayers have been for all our school community, our families, our key workers and all those who are helping to fight the fight against the coronavirus. If you would like to be included in the email list just drop Maria and email at mruane@arrowsmith.wigan.sch.uk. Additionally with the absence of public worship and Masses, Maria has created a ‘Bringing the Church Home’ resource to help you and your families pray whilst we are unable to pray together. The liturgical calendar of the year is linked on the resource and can be found on our school website under the ‘Catholic Ethos’ section if you wish to keep Sundays or any time of the day set apart for a quiet moment with God.
Many of our students have been sending in their pictures of the inspired work they have been completing at home during lockdown. Not only are our students staying motivated – they are going above and beyond in putting time and effort into the work they have been set by their teachers. As staff, we couldn’t be more proud of the dedication from our students. Mrs Connelly and the RE staff have been amazed at the fantastic attitudes of their Y10 classes who have made a fantastic effort on their Judaism projects and their Y9 classes who have produced some fantastic work around pilgrimage. Check out more of their work at @SEA_RETweets
In addition to the hard work of our students, we have had some fantastic updates from our amazing parents/guardians who have been working from home and coming up with allsorts of ways to keep their children’s learning fun and interesting! From family Scrabble games to improve English skills, cake baking and homemade fast food for Food Tech and mini home music concerts! We are loving the updates and couldn’t be more thankful for the support systems in place for our students at home!
Home Schooling Fun
If you are struggling for ideas on how to mix up your homeschooling experience and want to engage in something a little different, we have added lots of learning resources and information on our ‘working from home’ page on the school website. Why not watch Chester Zoo live on their YouTube channel, visit a national park virtually and explore or download a free audio book from Audible. Our MFL department have even suggested that watching a film in a different language with English subtitles is a great way to improve on our listening and speaking skills!
Our marvelous students and staff members have not just stopped at doing the bare minimum whilst in lockdown – they have, as usual, gone above and beyond to help make their local communities a better place by engaging in lots of different fundraising and charitable activities.
Leo B 7W and Sam B 7C took part in a sponsored silence arranged by our Chaplaincy and Faith in Action group to raise money for Nugent Care, a fantastic archdiocesan charity who continue the kind and essential work started by Father Nugent, helping the most vulnerable people in our communities. The boys managed to stayed silent from 8am - 8pm raising an amazing £198! For those of us who know the boys will understand that this is an incredible achievement for them to stay silent for that whole time as they are usually full of laughter, energy and joyful chatter so huge well done boys, we couldn’t be prouder of you both!
Poppy OD from 7A has also been busy raising money! She is a regular fundraiser for Makants Greyhound Rescue 
NW and has been raising money on their behalf for around 5 years. Current restrictions have meant that regular fundraising activities have been stopped but Poppy has used the Easter holidays to run an online dog show, spending her time collating the entries and payments and posting on the charities social media feed. With over 500 entries received in two weeks she has successfully raised over £1000 for the charity. Very proud of you Poppy, well done!
One of the most inspirational thing to come out of lockdown has been the effort and dedication of our amazing Tech Team and volunteer staff led by Mrs Morris who have been working hard making PPE visors for our amazingNHS staff and carers. So far they have made over 2000 visors and are on track to make another 1000 this week. Working alongside other local schools; Westleigh High School, St John Fisher Catholic High School and Standish High School they have worked through the Easter holidays and continued to provide our local hospitals, pharmacies, hospices, care homes, surgery’s and clinics with the equipment they desperately need. None of this would have been possible however without the generous support from local business helping provide the vital materials they need to carry on producing visors for our NHS heros. A special thank you, therefore, goes to Plastech Ltd Wigan and Amari Plastics Manchester for your kind donations!
The length of this article is testament to the amount of work that is happening daily in our school community. This is by no means a definitive list of all the incredible things that have been going on behind the scenes. Our school twitter handles are a fantastic place to check out what has been happening additionally in each department and by individual staff members. But for now, we will leave you with this taster. I am sure you will agree, that now more than ever, we are proud to be Eddies.
Thank you NHS and Key Workers
