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

You are unreasonable to think of who had it worst.
I have kids who did exams during and just after but they were teenagers so could see friends legally and did.

In our junior school, the biggest gap between current and previous results is the current year 5. All kids have suffered though. I think it must have been particularly rough to be in Y10/11 and sixth form during the pandemic.

My two DC (now yr5 and yr7) have been fine from a social perspective and actually I think it help the elder gain confidence in themselves during lockdown. From an educational perspective they have missed out because their schools were particularly crap and slow to deliver any actual education until they had already missed almost complete year.

Our current couple of cohorts of preschoolers have been far lower socially and there is increased speech and language delays. They would have been babies during lockdowns. The lack of socialisation with other adults and children, fewer out of home experiences, and possibly an increased reliance on technology while parents tried working from home likely have affected early development in many of these children. Those with older siblings have faired the best in these areas. Many other nurseries have said similar, that the cohorts are much younger in behaviour and development than previous years.

I think all year groups will have unexpected gaps in their learning. My Y9 child had a disrupted end of primary and start of Y7, there are gaps in her knowledge compared to my older children at same age however I don't think she was the most disruptive year educationally as Y6 focuses on lots of SAT learning and revision.

Academic research does fully support what the OP suspects https://amp.theguardian.com/education/2022/may/18/younger-children-most-affected-by-covid-lockdowns-new-research-finds
Children aged 4-5 during the lockdowns are facing more severe ongoing effects than others.

Obviously this is at a population level rather than an individual level, and so of course there will be some in this age group who weren’t badly affected, and kids of other ages who were.

My is now in Y7 and yes she suffered ( she was in Y4 when Covid came) Her English is not great, she is on up the level she should be, I was just was told this last week on the parent evening.
^^
Also she never learned to swim. She always had fear from swimming as never learned before her school lessons started, was doing so well in Y4 school lessons with her peers, was to move into a deeper pool just the next following week - however Covid came, all pools got shut and the swimming stopped.
We obviously enrolled her in private lessons last year, however she absolutely hated it and cried so we stopped after a year as she was no progressing at all..

• i meant to say She is NOT up the level she should be

Completely agree with this. The behaviour in that age group is terrible. My Y8 DD has been bullied and badly sexually harassed by kids in her year.

Most children have been affected. I doubt Y3 has been more than any year. My 2 ds's weren't too bad, just got on with it. March 18th 2020 schools close. Ds1 was due to sit GCSE's. Ds2 was due to sit SAT's and finish primary.

I'm a governor in a large primary school. Data and progress wise, y3 have suffered the most in comparison with what is usually expected and comparatively with other year groups.

Funny enough this was a discussion at a recent school meeting I was at with a mix of secondary and primaries and this was generally agreed to be the year most affected. I have a DC in Y3 who hasn’t been as bad off as most as he had teacher parents at home through lockdowns but looking at the SATs results for his year at his school last year it’s heartbreaking the obvious impact it has had on them.

Absolutely. My son was year 3 during covid and fell massively, massively behind. He was one of the youngest as it was, but with shit glitchy tech, crap "education", he absolutely was left far, far behind. My dh ended up taking part time at work, sacrificing the money etc, to personally tutor him for almost a year to try and drag the poor kid up to what was "normal" expectations. We are extremely fortunate we could just about afford to do that, and now dh is back at more full time work now his industry has recovered, but by god, my poor son needed that tutoring. Not everyone is so lucky.

At the time, I said it would be the current nursery/reception age kids who would suffer the most ...
But in my house I have a y7 and y11 (were y4/5 and 8/9 for lockdowns) and its the eldest who's really suffered. Life never got back to pre covid with socialising etc and they've missed so much foundation for English/maths pre GCSe courses starting. Very worried for the summer. My y7 child is totally fine and sailed through it. Aced their SATS. Personality also comes into it.

This.

Totally agree with this. They are such a difficult year group. Teenage hormones raging but the maturity of 10-11 year olds. They really missed not going through those last 2 years of primary school to learn how to develop socially.

My current Yr 6 child (was Yr 3 at beginning of Covid) has barely been affected (academically or socially).

My 2 year old didn't, he gained actually. He gained a closer relationship with his father who was around a lot more.

I agree that older kids missed out on more

What has happened is completely different to the 3-7 kindergarten model, though. These kids started formal learning, got pulled out of it, got sent back to it, got pulled out of it again, got sent back… it’s really not comparable.

I agree with @SoupDragon - if you really want advice and tips, post asking for that, rather than trying to make it a competition between who lost out more/was most affected. You'll never get a definitive answer, it depends too much on the school, the age, and the child themselves - there will undoubtedly be some children for whom being taken out of a school environment would be a huge benefit.

There have been several high profile cases recently where children have actually died at least partly due to reduced monitoring and less opportunities for intervention by schools due to covid closures . Other children have had parents die due to it - maybe that puts the fact your child might be struggling a bit in maths in context?

Race to the bottom type logic is awful.

Read Edith Eger 's the choice. She's a holocaust survivor who eloquently explains the unjustness and harm of never allowing anyone else to talk about their struggles because " someone else had it worse"

isn't that exactly what OP is doing though? encouraging comparison over who had it worst?

the point is the vast majority of the population suffered to some extent from covid restrictions. Some fairly small - some hugely. You've mentioned the holocaust, well think of it in terms of WW2 - again something that affected everyone to some extent, but some very severely. Yet we didn't spend the next 80 years angsting over who exactly was most impacted - was it the children sent away as evacuees, the nurses treating people, the people whose homes were bombed, the soldiers fighting? We accepted it was a horrendous time for everyone, but focussed on doing what we could to a) make sure it didn't happen again and b) rebuilt society from the aftermath - post WW2 saw huge progress in living improvements.

We could either spend the next 50 years making excuses for this generation's cohort of students 'ah well they got worse a levels because they missed a lot of school 9 years ago' 'No wonder Gen A have worse mental health, covid affected them at a key stage in their development,' etc.

Or we can just accept that for the vast majority of us, covid was something we LIVED through (key phrase), in the same way most of us will live through various other bad things in our lifetime, and, if we are impacted by them, address those on an individual basis, focussing on what we can do to improve the future.

What will establishing 'Year 3 as a whole had the worst time ever during covid actually achieve?'

My DD is in reception now and her peer group seems to be thriving. She was in nursery through 2020-2022, and was only really affected by the first lockdown as she wasn't in nursery yet, but had all her toddler groups cancelled. But she was able to enrol in a nursery by June and toddler groups started in August, and those were able to continue through later lockdowns, so she was fine. All of her peers in her reception class went to nursery or preschool.

Have nieces and nephews currently in Yr 3, 7, 8 and the Year 8 and Year 3 have struggled. But the Year 3 spent more time out of school than she needed ( mum chose not to send her).

I’ve always been grateful my now Y3 was the age he was during Covid. Educationally and socially they will have many years to catch up before the next stage. I suspect by Y7 they’ll be OK whereas some of the teenagers have been broken by it.

Good things were our school got the EYFS back in asap in June and kept the reception style curriculum going for at least the first term of Y1. I know the Y2 Sats grades were down overall which is entirely unsurprising as they missed nearly 9 months of school in the end. But if you stop comparing them to the 2019 cohort they’re going to be fine.

I don't teach in school, but an out of school activity that crosses over quite a lot.

In terms of 'soft skills' - interacting with their peers, following instructions, sitting still, taking turns, listening and not interrupting by shouting out etc - it's definitely the 7/8 year old that are worst affected.

They're a bizarre mix of wildly behind, so that we're teaching them using plans normally used for our 5/6 kids (and the current crop of younger kids in the same class are better behaved and making faster progress) and massively overexposed to media, so that their behaviour frequently veers into completely inappropriate language choices, poses and acting out.

All our classes are relatively immature socially and emotionally, but this age band is markedly the worst. They're also struggling the most with reading and writing skills.

I think all were affected in different ways, maybe some more than others depending on the child. My son is Y4 now so had Y1/2 disrupted. To be honest, he doesn't seem to have been badly affected but I know we are lucky. He is a bright kid, we did what we could at home and he settled back in quickly.

Last year's Y13 had a tough ride as they Y11/12 affected and it made things much harder (I teach 11-18). That said, my Y11s last year had their whole GCSE course disrupted as they started it in Y9.

This year's Y7 seem to be have been quite badly affected. Many seem to be socially and emotionally much younger than previous years. Kids with SEN needs who have more gaps than they might have had. Disadvantaged pupils as well.