If you think your Y3 child has suffered the most post covid, academically in realation to slightly older / younger siblings

[LCTikaheu]

I say slightly older and younger as I don't mean those doing exams.

I have 3 DC. Y1 (in a toddler room when covid struck) Y3(just started reception) Y6 (was in Y3 but could read etc and was a bit more independent with learning because of that and very clever)

My middle Y3 child also had a disruptive Y2 with multiple teachers and little continuity. They just seem to have really suffered because of the lack of base education Y1 and R.

Now have a tutor once a week but wondering what else to do. Dh and I happy to help but find it difficult to teach say the basisc / foundation of eg) maths as we didn't do bonds and just "know"!

Just looking for anecdotal feedback on this and anything others found helpful / engaging.

Parents evenings are v short and focus on positives. Going to ask for an independent talk with teacher as think child is really struggling

Thanks in advance

Very interesting thread. I have a YR3 but I’m also a key worker. DD didn’t miss any school and continued going through all the lockdowns. Her teacher remarked at parents evening there is a clear line between her (and other key worker kids) who carried on attending and those who didn’t. Socially more than academically because they weren’t supposed to be “teaching” them

I’m so glad my current Y1 DS wasn’t in either of the two years above, where their reception year was impacted.

Out of the younger kids, I would agree that current Y3 had a particularly rough time, both socially and academically. There’s been such an improvement in my DS in the reception/Y1 years and there’s no way I could have replicated the social side at home and the academics I can only imagine (based upon a single homework sheet a week) would have been very tricky to push too much at home without everything becoming an argument.

I’m so sad for the kids and the knock on effect this will have in them forever. Even if your own child isn’t struggling massively, they will always be in the generation where children were given an impossible task.

My Y2 has suffered a lot more than my Y6 ( not at the time, she actually got on quite well with homeschooling) but she is being assessed for autism so hard to say how much is down to Covid or would've happened anyway. I'd like to think someone might have realised before the wheels fell off completely if she'd been in more.

I think it is so dependent on the school and parental input.
A friend of mine has a school educated Year 3 child, and they're flying academically and socially. I'm sure there are many other Year 3s doing well academically and socially. I'm sure we'd hear about it in the news otherwise!
It also depends on the child, some do struggle more than others. Your child could be struggling even if there weren't any lockdowns.

Dd is the year above but doesn't appear to have been affected at all. The work she missed was easy enough to replicate at home and we really made the most of being outdoors, having fun in nature, learning other skills which tbh is great for dc that age - she's had plenty time to catch up. Dd who missed much of her last 2 years at primary, all the fun things that also entails like camp and leavers dos and had a shit transition to high school where they were forced to wear masks and had maths taught to them by Spanish teachers one day and by a home EC teacher the next due to chronic staff absence and missed school time due to enforced isolations - she has suffered far more

I’m sure there will be many studies in years to come. The year 8s at my dds’ secondary are significantly worse behaved than other years - they would have missed out Year 6 due to covid and part of year 7. They’re disrespectful and angry (obviously not all).

i can completely see how missing reception and Year 1 would be huge so I agree there’s a lot to make up there.

my dc are 11 and 15. I’d say the 15yo has been slower to go out with friends and socialise but academically she was fine because her school were amazing with online learning and she’s super motivated so home learning was okay . Slight gap in maths but I’m hoping she can close that by summer - if not we’ll investigate tutors because I really can’t help.

dtds were Year 4 and 5 for covid. They had each other and actually became much closer and started seeing each other as friends. Academically it did impact but not as much as others.

for my family, the biggest impact was emotional - not seeing family in America, having a big holiday cancelled with extended family because dd3 had covid, Dd not being in half the dance show because she caught covid… the cancelling means they actually don’t look forward to events now until the actual day, which I find sad.

Schools do seem to be just carrying on like nothing happened.

I think it depends a lot on individual children and we don't know how they would have been without covid?
I don't think we can pin it on certain year groups really.
It was pretty crap for everyone but affected everyone differently...

My current year 5 seems to have no lasting effects from lock down, all though very much struggled at the time. My year 8 ds didn't struggle at the time but has definitely suffered in terms of his social development/skills. His dyslexia was also missed and not picked up until year 7. I'm sure had he been in school for all year 5 & 6 it would have been found sooner. When he was in year 7, a couple of the teachers commented it was the youngest group of year 7 they'd ever had (not in age obviously) in terms of social development.

The experience we’re having in my school and I’ve been told anecdotally from other colleagues is that our yr1 and 2 year groups appear to have been worst affected. I’ve not come across a group that have so many social issues and speech delays as our current kids. My year 3s do not show any particular problems and are all broadly on track.

I have a yr 11 sitting the first" real" GCSEs for 4 years who lost half of year 8 and an awful lot of yr9.Even when schools were open there were huge restrictions (distancing, masks) at least those in primary have more years to make things up. Interestingly I also have a University Fresher who was yr 11/ sixth form who appears to have been affected v. little.

You can't say a certain year group is affected more that is just your child. Everyone is different and we all need to make the best of it. You can't change what's happened and I reallly don't see how harping on about the past events can help anybody. If your child is behind then address that but don't moan about Covid.

I have a P4 which is Y3 equivalent and I don’t think she’s been negatively affected at all. She was really, really sad for part of the first lockdown to not go to school and be with her friends but as soon as first lockdown ended she was completely fine. Academically, socially, athletically, musically - she is flying. I don’t know any of her friends/my friends’ kids in P4 that are having issues. But the school system is slightly different so maybe that’s why.

My P2 (Y1) struggled more because he was really anxious about going back to preschool but is also doing really well now. It’s been a harder road for him… but that is also his personality.

The effect on my exam-aged teens was huge. Friends’ university-aged kids really struggled; I think students were a forgotten group who had a really raw deal.

I am interested that current Y3s suffered so much. We are often told how great the Scandinavian model is where formal schooling doesn’t start till 7. Yet we are seeing problems with that clearly.

I couldnt agree more. I have on in year 12, one in uni was year 12 when covid struck and one in year 8. The year 8 is far and away the most affected, academically he’s fine, his school managed home school brilliantly but socially and emotionally the year 8’s are way behind where they should be and the behaviour is really noticeable from my other kids

I get your point, but I also understand why people are raising concern about how to support children who have been impacted by covid. As children attend school in year groups, it's a well understood way to refer to a cohort while acknowledging that all children had different experiences.

Understanding how our children have been affected by the pandemic will help society to readjust without unfairly labelling this next generation. How often have you heard millennials referred to as snowflakes? I'd hate to think current kids are similarly mocked for being the way they are because of having lived through a global crisis at a critical development age.

My DD was Y7 and Y8 through lockdown. She's definitely been impacted socially and emotionally. I feel so sad for her but would never let on that I think she's been disadvantaged. I keep supporting and encouraging her.

I'm a school governor, and the staff at our school have noticed current Y4 have the most difficulties, particularly around behaviour and attentiveness.

Mainly I should think because we’re expecting them to be like y3s who have had formal schooling since 5 but that isn’t the case. In schools (in terms of curriculum, exams, ofsted etc) it’s like we have to pretend covid didn’t happen and that’s what’s having the impact imo - if we could just meet the children where they are instead of this constant drive to ‘catch up’ everyone would be happier emotionally.

All children have been affected. As a teacher, we’re still seeing it in the children coming into reception & year 1 - more and more children who aren’t potty trained on starting school, huge speech & language needs, undiagnosed send, behavioural issues. Whether this was the way society was moving anyway is hard to tell but covid definitely accelerated things. More and more children (& their parents) don’t have the social skills to exist and thrive in a large group.

I'm a primary teacher and nationally it appears to be the current Y2 and Y3 who have been most affected.

I find is weird you want it to be a competition - everyone, especially children have missed out and it’s effected them.

Most primaries see Y3 as the most impacted year
Outcomes are lower, behaviour is poorer, resilience is low.

This is a post I fully agree with. My children were GCSE and university ages and yes suffered. However, I have friends with children in year 1 -9 I see how it affected them too. 2 friends with year 3 one is thriving one is not. One had a lot of input as dad is a teacher one did what was sent home from school.

Covid affected us all and I don't think it's possible to say x group was the worst

My oldest is also in Y3 and really struggling. The school seem overwhelmed by the amount of problems with children in Y3. So many waiting for assessments and support via CAMHS

My current year 4 (so year 1 in 2020) she has definitely suffered the most. We also don’t know how to help her catch up. We have tried tutors but she hates it. There was all this talk of catching up kids but it’s all now been forgotten about.

My other 2 were better off, one was in year 3 and because she could read already and had the basics did quite well with lockdown school. My other was only at nursery and loved lockdown as we were all around her all the time.
the year 1 had to be directed through everything during lockdown and is definitely behind as her school was terrible and I’m a terrible teacher.

I recently attended a talk by a mental health educational specialist, and her view is that the current Year 8 girls seems to be the most impacted, as they missed out on lots of key friendship development stages, and seem to be a lot meaner to one another and have more frequent fallings out, whereas current Year 7 boys are presenting with higher than ever levels of anxiety. I agree that all children were impacted to a greater or lesser extent, but I thought these findings were interesting and tallied with friends' experiences of children in those year groups. Anecdotally, I believe current Year 9 children are also slightly academically behind where the school would expect them to be, although this again varies from child to child.

Last year had real GCSEs.

The data backs this up. It was really disruptive for the kids who lost early years education - they don't just do book learning at school.