Headteacher Søren Friis picks up a chair in one of the classrooms in Lykkebo Skole and repositions it at the narrow end of one of the desks.
“They would have been like this, and now it’s like this. So, it’s 1m 20,” he grins. “They can’t work here and they can then do this (he swivels the chair), and look at the teacher.”
This is the main change that is happening as children over the age of 11 return to Lykkebo Skole, the school he runs in a quiet suburb of Copenhagen, on Monday morning, meaning almost all the school’s roughly 500 pupils will be back.
The pupils, who have had a double desk to themselves since schools reopened on April 15, are now going back to sharing, but with each child occupying the narrow end.
“On Monday, they will have to sit there and then, almost, we will have a normal school day,” he tells The Local when we visit during the preparations for opening for year’s six to ten.
“The problem for the students will that be they can’t interact and same way: they can’t fight and do these things and they love to do. They still have to keep a distance from each other.”
Pupils between the ages of 12 and 16 are returning to school (folkeskole) on Monday May 18, a process that has been made easier by halving the recommended distance that should be kept between people from 2m to 1m.
