As we said farewell to the year 2020, and welcomed 2021, the new year meant that we were looking forward to some sort of "Normal" returning to our lives, after the Covid 19 pandemic cause so much chaos in all of our lives. This "normal" that we wished and hoped for went out the window when we were forced to spend our Holidays in such a different way.  We realized that "normal" would never be again, as the Country went into its second wave and the Government adjusting the 2021 school calendar. 
 
Normally this time of the year schools are open and work have resumed but things are definitely  different this time. Schools were said to open in January, but because of the spike in the number of positive cases and the pressure on the health care system, the opening of the schools were delayed with another two weeks. 

The delay in opening the schools is once again putting so much pressure on not only our scholar, whose school year will now be shorter,  but the parents of those children. Parents are faced with extra costs  for daycare and the uncertainty of how they should prepare their children for  completely unprecedented times. We have discovered that so many parents have anxiety, including myself, as we need to teach our children that its no longer okay to touch different surfaces, and to distance them from their friends because they might potentially run the risk of contracting Covid 19.

The extended closure of schools in South Africa could have serious long-term ramifications for learners - especially in the earlier grades. It will be difficult  for the educational system to recover the learning lost. The younger students are particularly at risks of forgetting about skills and knowledge they acquired at school if they stop learning for extended periods of time. 

It is clear from the current situation that we as parents will have to contribute positively to  our children's academic life and spend extra time with our children to make sure that they are mentally prepared for the school year.