Teachers and parents do you feel like your DCs education is starting to recover

[mymymisszoe]

My DS is in year 12 and I’ve just had his parents evening and speaking to the teachers they all mentioned how far year 12s are behind academically compared to normal years. This honestly got me thinking are your dc starting to come out the other side from an education point of view and if so how old are they and what was home learning like for them. If they are still behind and struggling when if ever do you think things will get back to pre covid levels. I would honestly be really interested to know teachers opinions on this as well and what things are like in schools at the moment now they are in theory supposed to be back to normal?

My year 3 child has caught back up, my year 7 child is still behind - particularly in their weaker subjects - and I think emotionally and socially
immature

I am a tutor and went back to face to face teaching in September. I don't think I've had a single week since where I've taught every student. Either the student has Covid or a parent or a sibling or some combination. I've had Covid twice and have just had to isolate again for two weeks.
My impression with maths that the students ( some very able , some with specific learning difficulties) are further behind than normal and that in addition schools are moving faster through the syllabus ( esp year 10) to try and catch up and are not always aware of how insecure the students are actually feeling about the material and how significant some of the gaps are differences between what I am feeding back to parents and the feedback they are getting from parents evenings etc). I think there is still quite a way to go until a lot of students are fully caught up.

I teach at university level, we are having a lot of problems with poor attendance, submitting work late etc - much worse than pre Covid. Far more students with mental health issues too.

@Fabtasticfanatic year 6 teacher here. If your year 6 child has just been doing sats prep all year your school is rubbish.
In year 6 the maths knowledge moves on hugely and there is a great deal of new content.( adding, subtracting mixed fractions, multiplying and dividing fractions by an integer, algebra, area of triangles and paralellograms, and moe) In English, the use of ;: and parentheses is new learning plus a huge array of grammar.
So if they've just been doing sats prep, that's wrong. Understandable because of the pressures though. Unlike gcse, sats have not been ameliorated and no pre test info or curriculum shortening has been allowed.

Yeah I agree with a pp that it's hard for Y3 who are still expected to do the same as normal, despite having missed a lot of foundations in phonics especially. Spelling and handwriting are what my 3s and 4s are most behind in. I worry that the letter formation habits some of the Y4s have managed to hang onto up to now are going to be tricky to undo!

cleocleo24: Current Year 2 were in education for the whole of the various lockdowns and bubbles etc but were the youngest group to do so, having only had half a year of Reception when it all kicked off. So they have only had 2.5years total at primary school to-date, of which the first 2 academic years were pretty disrupted. Someone is e.g.: Year 8 now has had 8.5 years at school of which only 2 were disrupted, a smaller percentage of their whole experience.

My child is year 7. Academically, she flourished in lockdown. Her school provision was fantastic. We had full days of online instruction. The school provided computers for everyone. Her teachers were amazingly creative with the curriculum. She also had access to two well educated parents if she ever ran into problems. She could have continued learning that way indefinitely. I was kind of sad to see it end. It was a far superior method of learning for her.

Socially and organization wise, she is just starting to catch up. She missed out on a pretty important year of secondary school in terms of learning how to manage her life.

I have a Year 12 as well, and I've not even considered this.

They do monthly CAPs (tests) and he is hitting his target grades.

It wasn't mentioned at all during our parents evening that they were behind. Although I think for Physics they maybe didn't cover all the GCSE curriculum at his High School, they did for Maths and his third subject is History so probably irrelevant.

@BestZebbie

cleocleo24: Current Year 2 were in education for the whole of the various lockdowns and bubbles etc but were the youngest group to do so, having only had half a year of Reception when it all kicked off. So they have only had 2.5years total at primary school to-date, of which the first 2 academic years were pretty disrupted. Someone is e.g.: Year 8 now has had 8.5 years at school of which only 2 were disrupted, a smaller percentage of their whole experience.

Ah I see. Yes I definitely feel like dd and that age group have missed out on so much. The teacher said she feels along with the exam year students they have had the biggest affect from COVID. I can't help thinking about how different dd might be now if Covid19 had never happened. I feel really angry about the effect in has had on her and her peers.

This makes for really interesting reading. It's good to hear that so many children are catching up but I work in education and that's not really the story I hear from teachers and heads. There are still gaps in learning but the biggest impact is in wellbeing, stamina and mental health. Learning dispositions are not as robust. There is evidence too that the most vulnerable have been worst hit, with the work done to close the gap between disadvantaged children and their peers being set back by years.

I think there may be problems when the current 4/3/2/1 year olds start school.

DD is due to start school this September. She hasn’t seen a health visitor since she was one. The two year old assessment at nursery didn’t happen as nurseries were shut and then I was on mat leave. The HV two year review was over the telephone. I have no concerns about her though but many people I know have reported concerns about speech with their 2 and 3 year olds and nothing happened due to covid and the waiting list is over 12 months long to see a SLT and even then it was likely over the telephone. Fortunately, my friends were able to pay for their DC to privately see a SLT to help with their speech delay. I expect many cannot afford to pay privately so are stuck waiting on waiting lists. My almost 2 year old has seen a HV once in his whole life. I rang to speak to a HV as I was concerned about DS lack of speech except it is now impossible to speak to a HV and there are no clinics you can drop into like there was pre-covid. A week later a community health worker called back and referred him for SLT on the basis that the wait is over 12 months so you need to put him on the list now so he can be seen before he is three! I’m glad I didn’t wait for his 2 year review with the health visitor (which tends to happen at closer to 2.5 here) and then get put on the waiting list.

I'm a secondary teacher and would say year 7 and 8 are a bit behind emotionally and behaviourally - not naughtiness but more struggling with classroom environment. Year 9 and 10 more MH and anxiety issues. Year 11 and 13 especially are still shocked they will be taking exams I think.

I work across KS1 and I don’t think our children are behind academically but now that we are having more trips and visitors into school, you can see how they’ve missed out on so many experiences they would have usually had by now. While I don’t think the majority are behind, the gap between the higher/lower ability children has definitely widened, and parental engagement has made more of a difference than ever before.

As a parent:
My Y8 child is flying. But she’s academically gifted and highly motivated- did everything set during lockdowns and didn’t need help.
My Y4 - behind. But she has SEN and was behind before lockdown. She didn’t do much of the work set because I used any time to try and catch her up. We had some time at home and some at school because I’m also a TA so went in for my normal hours all through lockdown. If I was in she came too. If not she stayed at home with me to work. She would be behind regardless. If anything lockdown helped because it gave me time to work with her which she otherwise wouldn’t have had.

As a Y1/2 TA:
Behind what? Some artificial gvt standard decreed by someone who doesn’t under that kids all mature at different rates and will get things at different times?
The children in my class are all doing fine academically- we’ve got our usual mix of high flyers, and those who are bubbling along nicely and those who are struggling- they are exactly as every other Y1/2 group I’ve worked with.
Except socially. We have lots more separation anxiety, children sobbing at leaving mum or dad. We have lots more tears if things don’t go right. We spend far, far more time sorting out arguments because they cannot resolve it themselves. “She took the pen I was using…” “He said I couldn’t play with them ..”

That’s what I really notice.

My experience is this. Even though all children should have the possibility to reach their potential, academically able children hardly ever are, especially in state education so, if teachers hurry things along to make up for lost time, they will be perfectly capable of upping the pace when needed. However, children that find academic work difficult even in normal times, really need teachers' expertise and guidance and without it cannot independently fill in the gaps. They already struggle at normal pace so the gap will inevitably widen but more importantly, lots of children won't have the opportunity to learn as much as they could have.

I teach in a primary school and feel that most children have caught up academically.

Children who usually need support and interventions in order to learn at the same pace as their peers, need more.

Social skills seem immature - resilience, losing, coping with disappointment - because they haven't had enough opportunities to practise but they're getting there.

I feel that parents are more protective, possibly determined that their children have lost out on enough and that everything must be perfect for them now. Far more absence for minor things. But also appreciative and grateful that things are back to normal.

My teens have both flourished, but they have decent equipment- laptops, printers etc. They spent lockdown raising caid lambs, sledging and developing outdoor skills between Zoom lessons. Academically they are doing well, they are top and second set anyway with no MH issues. However they are not in the least bit street wise and I think a lot of that is down to restrictions.

Secondary teacher. Worse year is Y13, in no way ready for A-levels. Not been through any formal exam process and 5 months with nothing academic to do. Across the rest of the years those who are academic are catching up well. Not so much in those less academic students, work ethic low and lock down learning an excuse for not knowing much

Also notice that they seem to find some things very difficult to cope with - working silently for a short time, sitting still in assembly, ignoring distractions, not telling me every thought that pops into their head. I guess the expectations were different at home than they are in school and they still need more practise and experience at those things.

@DoobryWhatsit

Teacher. My year 12s are mostly fine, the only issue is that some of them have come to me with "7"s from GCSE that they probs wouldn't have got in a normal year. So it's not exactly that they're behind, it's more that they shouldn't really be doing my subject.

Similarly, there are small gaps for the year 10s, but they'll be fine next year.

Year 11s will suffer this year (although some subjects have had some very helpful exam guidance, or even lost whole chunks of the syllabus). Year 13 are in a real pickle. Most of them will get 2 grades lower than they might have done. Not just because of content missed, but because even now they just don't seem to understand how to knuckle down and just do some bloody work.

Yes this

Work in a school. Year 8s giant pita, haven’t learnt how to be at a secondary. Year 7 much better. Year 13 - still having lots of fun in the common room. Getting lots of great uni offers. Not sure they’ve twigged they’ve got to do the exams or offers mean nothing …,

@ThatsGoingToHurt

This is our experience exactly with four year old DD (also starting school in September) and is backed up by the many Early Years/KS1 teachers I know personally and all of the schools we visited before applying for our Reception place (we asked specifically about what fallout they’d seen from the pandemic).

Unanimous verdict was that they’re seeing far more speech and language issues, signs of developmental delay, emotional immaturity and behavioural problems in the new Reception starters. Lots of issues that should have been picked up previously but weren’t due to lockdown/closures/waiting lists.

We have no concerns about DD fortunately (she also missed all of her developmental checks), but know that many others in her school cohort are likely to struggle.

I'm a teacher and parent of a y12 dd, whose parents' evening I've just had today. All positive results, hopefully on track for very high grades. Most of the teachers I talk to say that the kids' behaviour, maturity and personal development has been more adversely affected than their learning. That goes for all years from nursery to year 11.

My own dc thrived academically during the lockdowns. They missed their friends (well, dd did) but they found they made faster, easier progress working independently without the distractions of being in class. Dd was thrilled not to have to do proper GCSE exams. Great for my dc, and I know we were extremely lucky to have dc who coped well, but a bit depressing that being in school doesn't seem to benefit them...

My experience as a teacher - across the board, year 7 to 6th form, the kids cannot cope as well with the classroom environment as previous cohorts. Not naughtiness, but it's as though their development paused during the lockdowns and it's like having year 5's or 6's in our year 7 classes.

Academically, it has massively widened the gap. The academic ones managed fine, the ones that really needed teacher/TA/SEN input fell behind during the lockdowns and have struggled to catch up. We're doing what we can but it's been a really disrupted year again in most schools. We've been lucky to stay open at times, let alone manage to catch kids up. It will be years before the ripples of the lockdowns die down.

My yr7 is doing amazingly & surprisingly well academic wise. I do think socially she has some catching up - maybe it’s a good thing in some ways as she definitely seems less mature than my older one at the same point.
My older one is in the first year at Uni- really struggling with the online still happening sad really as schools have all gone back the uni still haven’t. Which means as she not the most confident person anyway has struggled making friends. Which is sad to see but work wise she has been delivering essays etc But there are days in halls where she doesn’t speak to anyone for 2/3 days as all online and she has an odd mix in her halls & none of them have made friendships between them. But she has managed to find a few others but they go home a lot (because it being online)