Children still suffering effects of lockdown
Children forced to learn from home during lockdown are still suffering from emotional and social development delays, a study has found.
Pupils continue to struggle as a result of school closures during the pandemic, according to a new report that analyses the responses of over 6,000 state school head teachers and teachers in England.
The work was commissioned by Save the Children, Just for Kids Law and the Children’s Rights Alliance for England, and will be submitted as evidence to the Covid Inquiry.
It found more than nine in 10 primary school teachers said their pupils had experienced emotional and social growth delays as a result of prolonged periods of school closures during lockdown. Meanwhile, 85 per cent said that since the pandemic, children had struggled with behavioural issues and 78 per cent said their pupils suffered from mental health problems.
Among secondary school teachers, the biggest problem noted was absenteeism, with 87 per cent saying that children had been skipping school since the pandemic.
Next week marks four years since the first lockdown, which saw schools close and people told to stay at home.
‘We are seeing our greatest fears now’
Anne Longfield, the former children’s commissioner, said the report’s contents were “horrific”, adding: “This reflects what teachers tell me, week in and week out, that at every stage of school, there are children still deeply impacted by lockdown and Covid.
“Four years ago, when children were sent home from school, the warning signs were all there. My fear was that we would look back in four or five years time and see a generation of children with an impact that could affect them throughout their lives. Sadly we are seeing our greatest fears now.”
The survey, conducted by Teacher Tapp, found that teachers in more deprived schools – defined by the proportion of students eligible to receive free school meals – were more likely to report disadvantaged children falling behind their wealthier peers, and to a greater extent.
Four in five teachers said they have seen disadvantaged pupils fall behind their peers following lockdown, and 95 per cent believe the Government’s £5 billion Covid catch-up fund has not gone far enough to repair the damage.
The Children’s Rights Alliance for England and Save the Children UK are calling for an increase in cash for the Government’s catch-up programme, as they say the current funding does not go far enough.
The response to Covid failed our young – this cannot happen again
By Anne Longfield
Four years on from the first lockdown and most of us have moved on, our lives returning to normal. For many children, the pandemic and closure of schools has caused long-lasting, even permanent damage to education and development.
I fear we could end up looking back on the 10th anniversary of the first lockdown at a generation of lost life chances, asking why we ever allowed ourselves to assume that all children would recover from two years of enormous disruption.
Speak to almost any parent or anyone who works closely with children, and they will talk about how many children, particularly the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, have never been the same since lockdown.
As the Teacher Tapp/Save the Children survey shows, nine out of 10 teachers believe the emotional and social delay they’re still seeing in the classroom is related to lockdown and remote learning. They see how disadvantaged children are falling further behind their peers, and how the limited “catch-up” government funding has been largely ineffective.
After the second national lockdown was lifted, many of us urged the then Government to recognise the sacrifices that children made during Covid with a well-funded programme to get every child back on track. We called on the Government to be ambitious about supporting schools to stay open longer and to offer after-school clubs and weekend activities.
Sadly, those calls were largely ignored. In the context of other pandemic spending, the resource and political capital put aside for children has been piecemeal.
What is particularly frustrating is that many predicted that the pandemic and its disruption to learning, social development and play would have terrible consequences for some vulnerable and disadvantaged children. While the Government at the time was talking levelling up, Covid was levelling down many young people’s opportunities.
The attainment gap is growing, the scale of child mental health problems is still deeply worrying, and we have a school attendance crisis of previously unseen proportions.
If we are worried about the number of people unable to work due to their mental health now, what can we expect when tens of thousands of children who have struggled without real help since lockdown leave school and enter the workforce?
How will those children who fell out of the routine of going to school adapt once they are looking for work or having to hold down jobs?
What will be the impact on society of children whose development was held back when they were toddlers or primary school children?
We don’t know yet, but it would be extraordinary if our nation’s prosperity and productivity were not affected. The failure to take catch-up and children’s recovery seriously is not just a long-term problem for those children suffering from the impact of lockdown, it is a national problem for us all.
As I told the Covid Inquiry last year, the pandemic response overlooked children and so failed many of them. We can’t let this happen again.
It isn’t too late to prioritise catch-up and recovery funding. We can’t afford to write off thousands of our children.
It is in the national interest to recognise the damage that was done and to put it right.
Anne Longfield is chairman of the Centre for Young Lives and was children’s commissioner for England
