Since April, Michelle Jones has been keeping a huge secret, even her husband and children didn't know. But she can now finally celebrate the news that she's been awarded an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
She was notified in April she had been recognised, the official reason listed is services to education, but the long list of reasons shows it was much more than that.
When the pandemic hit, schools across Wales swung into action, working out ways to help deliver lessons to pupils who were immediately told not to go into school. Michelle and her staff at Cardiff's Lansdowne Primary School did all that, and much more. At Christmas Michelle and her daughter Nyah delivered food boxes to families who would have struggled to eat otherwise. She sourced toys which were given to children who otherwise would not have had a Christmas present. She made innumerable visits to families unable to leave their homes, working through the holidays to provide care 24/7.
READ MORE: The full list of people in Wales recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours
In and amongst all that, the mum-of-two was also looking after her parents and brother who were both shielding, her own children, and twice had to postpone her wedding because of the restrictions. She received notification of her MBE in April, and followed the instructions to keep it in the strictest confidence. Now it's a chance to not only celebrate with them, but look back on all that was achieved.
"If it wasn't for my son and daughter, my husband, my sister it would have been a very difficult time to have got through because we were working seven days a week, we were available sort of 24 hours a day, seven days a week for families that needed the support.
"My dad and my brother were also shielders at the time so myself and my sister were ensuring that they had shopping and dropping things off for them as well. It wasn't just sort of my school life really. My daughter she was going through A-levels, my son was in school. So the impact Covid had on everybody it was making sure that all my plates were spinning and I didn't drop anything really.
"It's one thing I'm quite good is spinning plates but times did get tough, there were tears and there were stresses throughout. As there were for everybody working on the front line. But I've got an amazing team at Lansdowne, my deputy Cath Cooper was incredibly supportive throughout, alongside all the teachers and teaching assistants at the school and I also worked really closely with a group of head teachers within our cluster. And we've been the hub together."
Looking back now it's almost hard to remember the seemingly minute-by-minute announcements that changed lives. Schools were immediately closed to all but children whose parents were key workers. The staff immediately met and decided they had to be reactive to whatever happened, and speak to the families immediately.
For Michelle, what made it a success at her school was the way they worked together.
"I think the way that we build our relationships with our families, and the relationships we have with each other. We've always been very open with our families. Lansdowne Primary has got an open door policy families are able to come in as they need to, and we try to keep that going throughout the lockdown. We were ringing families on a weekly basis and our more vulnerable ones we were ringing more frequently. They have access to our email addresses and an emergency phone number which was open seven days a week. We provided food, we provided just somebody to listen to somebody to talk to at the end of the phone when we couldn't go anywhere or couldn't see other members of their own families."
The school, with 365 pupils, has a catchment area including a diverse and multicultural area and includes some areas of high deprivation.
"We've also got very high areas of deprivation within our school. And we've also got, you know, people that are incredibly affluent within the school. So we are very diverse in all areas. We've got single parent families, we've got asylum seekers, refugees, so it was for us about catering for the whole school community."
What she did went above and beyond the expectations of any headteacher, but she says it was what needed to be done.
"We felt that we were in a crisis and you just had to support families as best as you possibly could. I didn't think we did anything special. I think we did what any good-hearted person would do throughout that time. We had families who could no longer work who couldn't provide food so we were able to get food from the food bank and then drop off to our families. At Christmas my daughter and I drove around dropping boxes of food to families so it was a real family affair.
"If we hadn't had the food, they would have really struggled. Through charities and also through staff donations we provided toys for children at Christmas time. We wrapped those gifts up for those we knew maybe couldn't or wouldn't have got a gift, we dropped gifts off. But families were really grateful".
At the time her daughter Nyah was doing her A-levels, and son Daniel was also at school. With members of her immediate family shielding, she had to take measures to protect them too. Each time she got home from school she changed her clothes immediately, washing them. She followed the rules to the letter, wearing masks for longer than she was required and sanitising.
"I was conscious that I was coming home and conscious that I was dropping food to my brother's and my mum and dad's doors and when we visited families from school, we'd make sure we wore face coverings and never entered the home, we'd stand at the end of the drive or at the at the doorway talking,"
As an educator, she was, and remains, worried about the impact the pandemic has had in learning.
"It has had a huge hit on education. We've had to go back to school now teaching the national curriculum. Throughout the pandemic. We were providing online learning for those families that could access it. In Cardiff we did roll out a programme where we tried to give every child in the city, a laptop or Chromebook so that they could access the online learning and teachers were engaging online with their classes. We went back in September last year and this is the first proper year in school and it's been a case of baselining all the children, finding out where they were, where we needed to sort of pick up their learning from and, and try to build in some of those basic foundations that they may have missed.
"Children are resilient and they do pick things up but I think we've got to be mindful that some of these children haven't been in school for 18 months or so. Their learning has been impacted and it's important for us as educators that we do the best we possibly can to ensure they still meet their potential because they have a right to feel do as well as they possibly could, whether there was a pandemic or not."
Staff at the school have only broken from their bubbles since Easter. "We were still working in separate staff rooms in what we were calling bubbles and we've had to think of wellbeing and mental health."
"The pandemic has had a huge impact on the mental health and well being of children and adults and as a head teacher, it's been really important to recognise not just the struggles of the children but also the struggles of my staff, and that we've been able to point them in the direction of any support they may need, or we've been able to put measures in place and reasonable adjustments to make sure that they feel safe and secure whilst they're in work with the children. But I think for us, it all comes back down to the relationships that we build with each other — with staff, our wider community and with our pupils".
As she sits and looks back now, like many people she can't quite believe what happened and what she did. "You just go into automatic mode. You know people need help and I've always been like that as a person, I've always put everybody else before myself and I think that's why my family are proud of me because I'm always willing to help I'm always willing to go that extra mile it's quite emotional actually talking about it."
She was due to marry Ian in August 2020 but when restrictions meant they couldn't have had it, then it was rescheduled for April 2021, but again they realised it wouldn't be the day they planned. "We had come so far through the pandemic, and what was important to us wasn't just getting married but it was having our friends and family there. We were lucky to get married in December of last year and I had huge support from my governing body and we had the most incredible day with all of our friends and family with all but two people."
To celebrate her MBE she will join her family for a celebratory breakfast and now she can talk about it, she admits being a little emotional.
"Now people know, it's emotional and I'm really proud, it's quite a surreal experience. We won the St David's award a few weeks ago, that sort of took our breath away a bit but with this it's just so lovely to be recognised because I'm so passionate about what I do. I love what I do and I'm really passionate about it and I've been doing it for 22 years. And I couldn't imagine doing anything else. It's so lovely to be recognised."
