No amount of extra tuition will replace what children have lost during the coronavirus lockdown ... [+]
Fears of a growing educational divide as millions of children now face spending six months out of school have prompted calls for catch-up classes to ‘close the gap’.
But it’s not summer schools that children need. Instead, they need understanding that some gaps are unlikely ever to be filled, and support to overcome the obstacles this may bring throughout their lives.
It now looks unlikely that the majority of children will return to school before the summer break, despite the U.K. government’s aim.
The continuing high rate of Covid-19 related deaths in the U.K., plus difficulties in implementing social distancing measures in schools, means the majority of children will not return to school until September, and possibly not even until November.
And the children likely to be most affected by school closures are those likely to be already behind their peers.
In response, England’s Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield this week called for the government to organize summer schools to help the students most badly affected by the lockdown.
After a prolonged absence from school, there are fears that some children may never return, she told the House of Commons education committee on Wednesday.
But summer schools are not the answer, not least because the teachers who would run them have already been working throughout the lockdown and will be in need of a break themselves.
Many students, also, have been studying despite school closures, as well as having to cope with separation from their friends. And those who have not been studying online - those most at risk of falling behind - are perhaps those least likely to volunteer to come in for extra lessons.
The Education Endowment Foundation, a charity, has proposed extra tuition targeted at disadvantaged children as an alternative.
But the truth is that however effective these interventions are, there is little doubt that the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers will have widened during the lockdown.
And while extra tuition, or summer schools if children attend them, may plug some gaps, the reality is that no amount of extra tuition is going to replace what children have lost during the lockdown.
Instead of trying to make sure students ‘catch up’, we need to recognize that the education gap is not the biggest problem students will face once the lockdown ends.
The impact on children’s well being and mental health is likely to outweigh the impact on their education. Not every child will be traumatized, and children will react in different ways, but the combination of isolation, anxiety and loneliness has been described as a ‘ticking time-bomb’ for child and adolescent mental health.
And what will be most useful to these children, when they do eventually re-enter school, is not catch-up classes but an understanding of the potential effects of the experience they have just undergone, and of the gaps in their education that will persist.
This may involve a gradual reintroduction to the classroom, an awareness that the lockdown will have an impact on children’s behavior once back at school, or a focus on rebuilding relationships ahead of learning.
And it may also involve a recognition that if the children are no longer on track to hit their targets, then it may be better to move the targets.
This understanding should not just be confined to their teachers, but should also extend to their future college tutors and employers, who need to recognize that the impact of the lockdown is likely to be far-reaching, both in terms of the learning they may have missed and the emotional aftershocks they may experience.
The coronavirus lockdown may end up - hopefully - being a one-off event, but its impact will last a lifetime.
