So we’ve made it to the summer holidays but what a helter skelter ride it’s been.

A couple of weeks before the end of term, we hit another low point.

The school messaged a number of students who had come into contact with someone who had contracted Covid.

It was a shock when one of my friends told me that she was going to have to self-isolate as a result.

This is the first time since the pandemic began that any of my friends have had to do this. I checked my phone but I hadn't received the same message, so I could continue to go to school.

I was glad I didn’t have to self-isolate but it messed up my plans with that friend, and another one of our group, because she couldn’t come over to my house the next day as we’d planned. A birthday party I’d been invited to was also cancelled.

However, it was worse for them because they both had exciting things to do on the weekend which they had to scrap.

I went into school on Monday knowing that the Covid rates were rapidly getting worse and that a few people in my year and a few of my friends were told to self-isolate for 10 days.

Knowing that a couple of people were off school, I was expecting only a few empty seats in my class.

However, as we filed in, even my teacher was shocked at how few people were in.

Just over half of the class were missing and the other half were waiting to join an online lesson.

There was less distraction than normal but the downside was for the teacher trying to conduct a lesson in real time and digitally. They often have to explain everything twice… add to that the tech issues or problems logging in or with the Wi-Fi signal it can be frustrating!

The ones isolating got to do lessons in their pyjamas and spend time at home but, personally, I was glad to be able to go to school and mix with my friends.

And, now the holidays are here, hopefully we can start to catch up on what we’ve missed out on!