Jewell Academy pupils mark a year of lockdown with a time capsule filled with letters & drawings that reflect their memories

A year of adapting to a new normal and a chance to reflect. 

Pupils at a Bournemouth academy have marked 12 months of lockdown and schooling during a pandemic by capturing their memories in a time capsule.

All 420 pupils at Jewell Academy, from reception to year 6, produced a piece of work for the capsule.

Items ranged from letters to the NHS, letters to their future selves or drawings of super heroes with all the work designed to reflect their thoughts on the last 12 months.

Their work has been sealed inside a time capsule which has been buried in the school grounds. Six years will pass before it is dug up and the contents examined.

The letters and drawings describe life over the last 12 months from lockdown to home schooling and have also served as an opportunity to list goals they hope to achieve from making it to college to excelling in sports competitions.

Year 3 pupil Clara Vaughan said: “It is exciting that children will dig the capsule back up, my brother will be the one who does that as he will be in Year 6 then.”

Alexandra Waddington, Principal at Jewell, said mental wellbeing and the return to school served as motivating factors for creating a time capsule.

She told the Bournemouth Echo: “It is highly unlikely that any other generation of children will go through what our pupils have gone through in the last 12 months.

“It’s important that they have had a chance to reflect on their memories and to realise they have been of an important moment in history.

“The exercise has also helped give our students a sense of community and belonging because it was completed as a whole-school and marked the return to school.”