A tribute to the class of 2021
When Reeling in the Years gets to air the reviews of 2020 and 2021, half hour programmes won’t be anywhere near enough to document the impact COVID-19 had on Ireland and the world.
When we look back, if we can bear it, we will recall all that was taken from us, all those lost and how hard it was to win back the freedoms we took for granted.
We will remember just how ruthless the illness was and how it came for our elderly and most vulnerable first and then laid waste to our traditions of saying goodbye to them.
We will remember too just how it affected and still deeply affects our children.
A report compiled by the Office of the Ombudsman for Children, titled ‘2020 Childhood Paused’, showed that all of the children who reached out to the OCO raised the impact of the pandemic on their mental health as a concern.
Ombudsman Dr Niall Muldoon said the high number of complaints from children is unique in his six years in the role, and that 2020 was “devastating” for them.
“We heard heartbreaking stories of children with additional needs regressing and about the turmoil the uncertainty caused.
“Children were grappling with the digital divide and they worried about parents who had lost their jobs as the pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy,” he said.
This week the class of 2021 - sixth class and sixth year are ‘graduating’ - departing their respective school environments, an occasion that will be bittersweet for them and their families, many of the milestones they should have celebrated gone forever.
After a year when lessons were delivered by laptop and classrooms shrunk to a small, often shared bedroom, the Leaving Cert students of 2021 are finally through to the other side. They were given the option of choosing to sit the exams or instead rely on so-called accredited grades. They will automatically be awarded the higher result of the two, some stress alleviated at least. They will get their results on Friday, September 3, and first-round CAO offers the following week. Let’s hope those results bring them the options they want and the success they deserve.
They lost the parties, the Debs, the interaction with their teachers and school friends, they don’t want to spend the first year of college online. A return to normality can’t come quick enough for them now.
For sixth class students too, the last year has been particularly brutal. The end of the primary school year and the excitement of looking ahead to a new start in secondary school has yet to fully materialise. Gone for them were the school tours, the day trips, sports and other competitions that would have punctuated a normal sixth class year. The big Confirmation Day was shelved too, now a mid-summer service with restricted numbers is planned. So much left behind. It all seems so strange, so unfair but normal now.
To the Class of 2021, you’ve had it so tough this last year and had to deal with so much but you did it, showing great resilience and creativity along the way. Enjoy these last few days, savour the moments and memories and know your parents, families, teachers and school communities are extremely proud of you.