Schools officially broke up this week for the summer holidays with full-time teaching expected to resume as usual in classrooms on August 12.
The enforced absence from a normal educational setting has meant a huge change in learning with everything being done online.
Teachers had to adopt a ‘suck it and see’ approach when setting tasks for pupils who have also had to adapt to the changed circumstances.
Submitting work on time required a degree of self-discipline – but how did pupils cope?
The News asked Kirkcudbright Academy pupils from Gatehouse for their views.
Fergus McClure, 14, said: “It’s not been too difficult for me. We get set work for the week and we have to send that in by 3pm each Friday.
“At the start on the whole I think the Covid-19 situation was harder to get to used to for the teachers than the pupils.”
For Sahara Paton, 15, Laroque art has been the focus for her studies. She said: “I like to use oil pastels and I’m trying to work on using coloured pencils and graphite to do portraits.
“I have been submitting some thumbnail pictures but I have been doing a lot more work than they have been asking for.
“I’m really looking forward to the holidays but I’m still going to be doing school work.”
Hope Taylor, 15, will start S5 after the summer break and study for her highers.
“Self-discipline for doing work was the hardest thing to begin with because I’m bad at that kind of stuff,” said Hope.
“Being out of school was new to teachers too and they overloaded us with work at the start.
“They figured things out quite quickly and we soon got into a bit of a routine.”
Frankie Wright, 13, did not really apply himself when lockdown began. He said: “In the first month I did not really crack down on it because I did not see it going on that long.
“Now I’m working twice as hard to get work done.
“This year is a decider for what exams I will be taking - and it’s important that I get that right.“
