Y10 - the forgotten Covid year?

[kittybloom]

Any Y10 parents out there? I really feel this year group is forgotten about in terms of the impact of schools shutting and COVID. A friend mentioned to me once that Y6 and Y7 are very important transitional years and we can't underestimate the importance that our children missed out on that. Compared to my younger child who is now in Y7 - it is stark. Older child holds back and hasn't thrown themself into much. Younger child is trying lots of different things and exploring life more. From general chatter amongst my friend group (so I appreciate non-scientific) this seems to be the pattern; the Y10 haven't engaged in secondary school / life experience as much. I feel quite sad about it, I suppose. I've tried prompting to go out more etc but ultimately they are of an age now where a lot of those choices are for them to make rather than us be helicopter parents.

I think the Y11s being taught in 2020 were worst affected. The education system essentially cut them loose. I had to dismiss my GCSE class with 10 minutes notice on the last day. They never came back. They had worked hard for their exams and had so many rites of passage planned. Quite traumatic for them to be honest. They are in their second year of Uni now. I didn't teach Y13 that year, so can't compare with them.

Current Y7s are difficult, I must say, but you get more challenging cohorts anyway.

Covid will impact the education of a whole generation from those who were in their 3rd year of university down to those born in the pandemic.
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Lost learning, lost experiences, lost socialisation, reduced maturity impacting later learning; and that's before you consider the kids who developed MH issues, or who missed out on being assessed for SEN at the appropriate time.

But at least that year group had done their learning. They missed out on the revision/exams, but they had actually covered everything they were meant to learn. Their y12 year would have been impacted however.

I feel my Y7 child and their friends were less affected and heard no issues of bad behaviour. However that goes against the clear theme of this thread. They were Y3 in 2020 - why that year affected re behaviour? Or is the dread that the same will follow in the subsequent years?

@reallyneedwinerightnow ”Academically the y7 perhaps missed more due to covid lockdown but socially he didn't and I think for the transition to secondary school that is the most important.”

I very much agree with this and there was a similar comment upthread from @IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads

@KeepingItUnderTheRadar we've had similar experiences. It makes it all bittersweet as a previous poster said. Your older child sounds lovely that he could be happy for his younger sibling’s experience

as I said, I don't necessarily think they suffered because of lock down, more that they have been over compensated, and have been given too much unsupervised screen time, since.

My current year 11 was impacted and missed part of year 7 and 8, but as an introvert it actually gave her space to grow away from peer pressure. I think it affected friendships but feel she’s come out the other side now. Obviously every dc is different. Dtds were year 4/5 and you wouldn’t have a clue anything happened. But, they had each other throughout and dh was amazing at home schooling.

My y10 child is doing OK.

I notice a big difference in our current preschoolers though - they were babies in 2020. They are very immature and have a lot of behavioural issues compared to previous preschoolers prior to 2020. The preschoolers since 2020 have all had issues compared with the groups prior to 2020. Behaviour, speech and language and immaturity being the biggest issues.

I should add that the year groups below seem much more typical development wise.

I have a Yr12 who seems relatively unaffected, and a Yr10 who has barely been in school in the last four years, but in that time she has been diagnosed with autism and several mental health problems including OCD and PTSD, so blaming COVID would probably be unfair. She does still regret missing out on the end of primary milestones like the musical and residential trip though, and transition into secondary was a disaster - the extra layer of rules and restrictions due to covid definitely contributed to her difficulties in coping, as she was terrified of doing something wrong by accident in her new school.

@NImumconfused sirry to hear this, that sounds tough. I can see how the rules (and changing of the rules) could make a child of our child’s age at the time more anxious

DS is first year uni. The uni is doing loads - free pizza, board games in every flat but the kids just don't communicate with each other. Friday & Saturday nights everyone is watching box sets in their single rooms.
The sports kids are in a better place - socially but it's very fragile.
Couples pair up, lots of relationships lasting the course from home but very few big fluid groups that you'd recognise from the parents experience back in the 90s.
I'm really quite angry about the way all young people have ended up.

@Gazelda i feel your pain re what’s lost with failure to explore creative subjects.

It’s a slightly differing point but my Y10 child was really into swimming. By the time it was back up again properly as a club, the moment had passed. Perhaps it would have always happened but as a previous poster mentioned, there is just general lack of joy. I feel like there is a lack of excitement in the knowledge the rug can be pulled.

@WogansHen I suspected this is how it may be. I think my Y10 will be the same. It’s sad.

I do think if you have a sporty kid then that helped a return to routine and socialising.

I'm interested in those saying they have noticed an obvious impact on preschool aged children. My first child was born in 2020 and will be starting school this year. I have nothing to compare it to but my sense is being born and therefore very young during the worst of the pandemic hasn't materially affected her progress. By the time she was 1 most restrictions were lifted, she entered nursery as normal when I went back to work and has had a seemingly 'normal' experience. She does have a mild neurological condition which wasn't picked up as early as it might have been as all HV checks in her first year were done via zoom but it has since been promptly identified and treated. I suspect the impact has more been on parents, particularly mothers, navigating that first year in isolation and the social networks they, and their children (especially if not going onto nursery etc) were able to meaningfully form. It takes a village and all that...

Thank you. Yes, she was always anxious about complying with rules, but the experience of being in the new school with a complicated timetable, lots of new teachers and subjects, in combination with masks, one way systems, bubbles etc just completely overwhelmed her.

Are young people becoming more insular because of technology?

Anecdotally my Y10 is doing fine imo and is the least impacted out of my 3 DC. My Y13 has really struggled (missed lots of Y9&10 due to covid) and my Y4 who was in Reception at the start of covid has definitely struggled and the needs in their class are something else. Also anecdotally from my Y10 dc, the current Y7 (of which my DN is one) is awful in attitude and discipline.

I think they are all the forgotten years. All children missed out on significant chunks of learning (both academically and socially) and the long term impact of that developmental gap will be felt for a long long time. But nobody other than parents and teachers seems to acknowledge it.

I think the whole generation from lockdown babies to 18 missed important natural life progression .

The shocking part for me is there is no funding - no strategy for addressing the massive influx of referrals to camhs , no back up for the children who don’t meet the extremely high bar to access it .

I would also say my ds’s year had a higher proportion of Sen children in primary school and secondary I spoke to two staff/ friends who said that was the most immature year they could remember . This was prior to Covid .

There are so many factors that need to be addressed for children .it sadly just is a thread on MN not much else happening

Definitely more insular. At Uni, technology has now made this easy.
But also at home. We used to have the geeky kids congregate here - pizza, a cult film. Parents pick them up at 11. We even bent the rules during COVID with outdoor cinema but it was too little. All of that group have gone off to uni and struggled. Drinking alcohol has been interesting, they missed out the formative years, accelerated through the vomiting stage and now rarely socialise and are distrustful when they do.

The now yr 11s are also interesting - no roadmap from older siblings to follow, their social life is chaotic or non existent. I'm hearing kids I knew in Yr 6 repeat that emotional arc of friendship issues in yr 11.

I absolutely don't know what more I could have done as a parent because they really needed their peers. Who wants to celebrate a 16th birthday with their parents and the dog.

My youngest is in year 7. The behaviour in their class was awful from reception. In year 1 or possibly start of year 2 (2018) I asked teachers who taught the same year group in different schools/areas what their behaviour was like. They all said appalling so the issue with year 7 is not covid but something else.

Every year missed out on different things. (I know I'm stating the obvious here)
I think my y10 ds and his peers have been slower to develop socially, but he is involved in just as much as his older brother now (sport, d of e etc.)
My ds18 (y13) missed out on quite a few school trips, work experience etc., which his brother will get, but was already pretty socially confident so slipped straight back into that as soon as he was allowed.
I teach primary children, and we are now seeing the effects in y4 of children who missed out on the crucial early reading and phonics - generally writing and spelling is very poor.
I probably feel most sorry for my dniece, who had to come home half way through her final year of uni, and my other niece who spent her freshers year learning online shut in her room.

I agree, I have Y10 and a Y7. Obvs personality accounts for a lot, but the Y10 and friends seem a lot more introverted and immature than others. Not necessarily a bad thing, just an observation!