When Premier Daniel Andrews made the call to close schools in March this year, I was ready. I had already cleared out my locker and lugged my books home in anticipation. In the days leading up, there had been whispers of the closure, despite reassurances from Prime Minister Scott Morrison that they’d be staying open. Initially, it had been quite exciting. That was before the real effects set in.

I was disappointed because our family holiday had to be cancelled, along with catching up with friends and family. What could have been three weeks of being outdoors and having fun, turned into three weeks stuck inside playing video games and watching YouTube.

We received news that we would be starting Term 2 remotely and attending classes from home for the foreseeable future. So, on the 15th of April, we logged onto our computers and embarked on this strange new journey of online learning.

Just after we ‘returned’ to school, I celebrated my 15th birthday with a ‘surprise’ zoom party, which was exciting as a one-off, but isn’t something you’d want to do regularly. I got to see some friends and family, which, even after a few weeks in lockdown, was

Thankfully, we were able to return to face-to-face learning by the end of the term. This meant having to get myself to wake up early again (I’d been sleeping in until a few minutes before class for the past 12 weeks!), not being able to wear pajamas to class, and eating breakfast, not just snacking throughout the day.

We all thought that we were out of this, and life was returning to normal. But then, during the holidays, Victoria’s COVID-19 cases increased dramatically. By the time school had started for Term 3, we were back in lockdown. Starting new classes was an interesting experience. Normally you’d spend the first lesson getting to know who was in your class, getting to know your teacher and what the subject entails. This time, we, for the most part, didn’t find out who was in our class until we met at school in Term 4.

Classes are different at home. You have more time to focus because you can’t just chat with your friends or zone out. School from home isn’t that difficult, and to me, there is no real need to have to come into school and learn when you can do it from home. I know that some physical subjects, such as PE, woodwork or metalwork, require you to be at school. But other than that, you can read ‘Romeo and Juliet’ from home, you can learn about parabolas from home, and with the right teacher, you don’t lose too much. The teacher runs a Teams or Cisco WebEx meeting and teaches you.

Now that we are back at school, I have been able to reflect on my remote learning experience. I personally enjoyed it, and I think that it was a great learning curve in resilience, independence, and time management, and that, despite the difficulties, I, along with everyone else, will be better off for it.