Life in lockdown has taken its toll on all of us in different ways. And whilst there is still a long way to go before things return to some version of normal, the college – its staff and students – continues to work hard against the odds. If you’re a student, that might mean keeping your spirits high, despite feeling isolated from friends, or learning to navigate your way through the world of remote learning. It might also mean having to find new ways to motivate yourself to work and meet deadlines, or continuing to look towards the future and your next steps, whether that means applying for university or apprenticeships.

What has been great to see, is that despite all the uncertainty and anxiety of the past couple of months, our students at Loreto have not lost their sense of creativity, and this new edition of The Manchester Muse is testament to that. A week or so before half term, the college magazine put out a call for submissions, asking students to send over creative responses to the theme of “life in lockdown”. Whether this meant writing, art or photography, the aim was to try and capture a sense of the mood among students; the challenges they faced, their reflections, their observations; how their lives had altered and what they had learned from those changes.

Please show your support by visiting the link below. This special edition includes a guest introduction from our new Principal, Mr. Jaffrain, alongside a range of excellent poetry, opinion pieces, photography and art:

Lastly, this edition of The Manchester Muse    is dedicated to the    Black Lives Matter    movement and to    George Floyd.