Day 1...

Year 12,

Your new reality will not have sunk in quite yet; it may not sink in for some weeks. I wanted to start a blog not only to keep in touch with you during this time, but to share some advice on how to cope with life-without-Salesian. I’m planning on keeping you informed throughout the school closure in a number of ways: sharing some wider reading, keeping your UCAS application alive and on the ‘back-burner,’ reminding you all to ‘work hard; be kind,’ conducting some interviews with friends in various professions, and giving you some updates from the Matthews household. When you have very young children, you get quite used to ‘social distancing.’ This is a lesson I have learned in the last 3 months.

Remember, I used to only have 170 children - so life with 172 is very different! 

Today, seeing that it was sunny, and sticking to the advice from the medics, Mrs Matthews and I took the twins for a little walk around the block - a safe distance from others. It’s very good for the soul to get some fresh air; remember to build some time in to every day where you can do some exercise and burn off some of the frustration that you will begin to feel this week and in future. 

Something I’m reading
Today I started some very intellectual reading 🤥
Here is Alice and George completely ignoring their first book: The Farm
As you can see, Alice is asleep and George is only interested in the camera...so it wasn’t exactly a total success. I’m sure they will be on to Macbeth in no time though!
UCAS Thoughts...

When Mrs Baumgart and I took some students to Oxford University last week (photo below), we learned something about their admissions tutor’s view of personal statements. She said that they wanted 80% of the statement to be very subject specific - with lots of ‘super-curricular’ evidence. This is different to ‘extra-curricular.’ Your ‘extra-curricular’ activities are things like: sport, Duke of Edinburgh, work experience (where possible). Super-curricular is reading that you have done to explore your subject in more depth than an A-Level would require. Each week, in the blog, I’m going to imagine that I am in your shoes, applying to different courses and hoping to prove how passionate I am about it without saying ‘I’m really passionate...’

Today is the 21st March, some of you would have seen the Government announcement yesterday that revealed some economic relief for people whose jobs have been threatened by this pandemic. I am going to imagine that I am applying to study Economics and that I have done some additional reading of The Economist magazine - to help my application. Below, in purple, is a section of my imaginary personal statement.

As a budding Economist with a particular interest in public sector, macro-economics, I followed the Government response to the Coronavirus outbreak in 2020 with particular interest by using my subscription to The Economist publication. In the March 2020 issue in particular, the reaction of the markets to school closures was stark. The editor considered the impact of staff availability in small to medium-sized businesses. For the first time since World War II, according to the magazine, the Government seriously considered shutting down the markets and preventing trading. In terms of Government intervention in the private sector, this was a particularly alarming step. Typically, the state and the private sector exist side-by-side, rarely mixing. Experiencing this time was equally challenging (as an individual) and rewarding (as a student of economics). The relationship between public sector decision making and the stock market became symbiotic - perhaps more so than ever before. The decision of the government to pay private-sector wages was influential in protecting the value of the Pound...blah blah blah.

Apparently, this kind of thing is infinitely better to include in a personal statement than: 

‘I once played netball for the school in year 8’ 

‘I joined the cubs at the age of 7,’

or ‘I really like superhero films.’

Take care, good health to you and your families, 
Work hard; be kind,
Mr Matthews