'We miss you' - Sheffield school teachers create brilliant video for pupils in lockdown

The 12-minute video by Stocksbridge High School features headteacher Andy Ireland, as well as the school’s leadership team, various teachers, subject leaders, and teaching assistants.

It shows staff in ‘makeshift’ classrooms in their homes carrying out their daily lessons, albeit to a different audience – saddened by the fact they can’t be with their pupils during this difficult time.

Headteacher Andy Ireland said the school wanted to show students that they cared and were thinking of them.

He said: “Stocksbridge is a small school and is very much a school for its community, we’re missing school a lot. We just wanted to put the message out there to pupils saying it’s pretty much the same for us as it is for you.

“The important bit in the middle of it all is that it’s okay not to be okay – we have the same frustrations but we wanted to let them know we’re all in this together. We also just wanted to raise their spirits a little bit, show that we’re thinking of them.

“We’ve set up the home learning and we’ve been getting work back so the academics are all in place.

“Our pastoral team are making sure people are getting phone calls regularly, the vulnerable children, and we’ve got children in school too but it’s about sending that wider message to the wider community that we’re all learning together and it’s a bit of fun of well because that’s sometimes forgotten.”

The video features a number of backing tracks including Adele’s ‘Hello’, ‘Mardy Bum’ by Sheffield’s own Arctic Monkeys, ‘Let’s Get Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John on the part where students are encouraged to stay active, ‘I'll Be There for You’ by The Rembrandts – the theme song for the TV show Friends - and Westlife’s ‘You Raise Me Up’.

Mr Ireland added: “The feedback has been really positive, it’s cheered a lot of staff up and a lot of the children up too. It makes you realise what a great place the school is and really brings it home when you’re not there and the children aren’t there.

“The interactions, the learning, the laughter – when it’s missing the school seems a very different and empty place. As soon as it’s safe and appropriate to do so we look forward to welcoming all of our students back.”

Stocksbridge High School has also created a transition video for Year 6 children who will be moving to the school come September in the absence of being able to walk the corridors and visit the classrooms in person.

“With the current restrictions all our plans that we’d made to give them a real flavour for the school and make them feel comfortable had to be sidelined,” Mr Ireland said. “These will be our students in September so we wanted to start to make them feel part of our small community.”

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