Which option would achieve the best outcomes?

[CKBJ]

Another school thread following on from the latest IFS study. This study has highlighted the long term impact of school closures and how future earners of our children will be affected. Schools had to close and when it’s deemed safe they will reopen but how can children catch up all the missed learning? Children (will) have missed at least half an academic year and importantly the time out of the classroom coincides with last year so topics taught last year online are being taught online again-I’m thinking primary. The IFS praised the government’s catch-up fund but argues it doesn’t go far enough and suggest:

“The IFS report outlines options including extending the school year, lengthening the school day, mass repetition of entire school years, or summer schools to help children catch up.”

Each one of the options have positive and negatives and would suit different children. I don’t think the school day should be lengthened as children generally find it hard to focus in the afternoons hence why a lot of primary schools have Maths and English in the morning. I think the summer school would potentially miss the children you are trying to target. Changing the school year is something that probably needs to be done as it doesn’t necessarily fit in with the modern world. The impact on children’s learning though would be slower. This leaves me with the repeating year scenario. Personally my children have kept up and will be fine still I can see the benefits. Children who are behind have an opportunity to make up ground and those that are fine could be pushed further/exposed to higher order thinking within each subject. To achieve this the starting age for school is raised to 5/6. Children who were due to start school continue with a paid place at pre-school for equivalent school hours. This would help the nurseries. Investment on staff further education would also be needed. At the other end the graduate output for one year will be significantly lower but the government would need to create a list of those degrees that are imperative to graduate as normal a bit like a keyworker list. Not as wide! Each student would have to decide with their uni if they wanted to repeat or not. The repeat year tuition wouldn’t be charged but living expenses would be.

What’s other peoples views and opinions?

If they think children can catch up on 6 months of missed school (7 for us as we have had to isolate twice so an extra month )I don’t know why they think it’s fine to fine parents for 2 weeks holiday.

Children will be fine - people miss years and years of education due to illness and lots of reasons and they see fine

Can you please provide actual evidence for this claim rather than glib statements, the only academic study I could find which showed no harm from interrupted education was in 1950's Virginia where black schools closed, the conclusion on why it caused no harm was that the opportunities area was so racist there was no point for these black kids to go to school anyway.

Every other example showed harm to both health and wealth in future years - of course the reasons for interrupted education are always different and the actual reasons influence the harm - so you can't necessarily take previous evidence and say "this for sure", but simply stating they'll be fine almost certainly has no evidence whatsoever at population level.

@Peppafrig

If they think children can catch up on 6 months of missed school (7 for us as we have had to isolate twice so an extra month )I don’t know why they think it’s fine to fine parents for 2 weeks holiday.

The big difference is that at the moment, all the children are in the same boat. If you decided to take your child out of school for a two week holiday, YOUR child is behind the rest of the class and has missed out while the other children have moved on. In normal times, If a child is ill and missed school, I will go out of my way to help them catch up. If a child has missed school because they have been taken out to go on a jolly, I will still help them catch up but be really pissed off that their parents have put me in that position.

When the class comes back after lockdown, they will all have missed the same amount of time out of school.

When the class comes back after lockdown, they will all have missed the same amount of time out of school

That's quite a claim - are you saying no children are engaging and achieving to their normal abilities with your online provision, or are you saying all children are engaging and achieving.

That seems rather unlikely, and totally different to every other report, where the response to online learning is extremely variable, mostly correlated with the privilege in the family situation of course.

@sirfredfredgeorge
Experience - children who have missed months and months of school due to bereavement, family illness, their own illness... children who have arrived in the U.K. due to some truly horrendous circumstances- all without a word of English. With the correct interventions in place, they have succeeded. The majority of studies into this also, as you say, lack validity due to the extraneous variables ie, what caused the missed school.

Please don’t think me glib - The circumstances we are in are far from ideal, but all children are in the same boat. I hate it and feel devastated for them that it has come to this, but truly, what were the other option other that to close schools and provide online learning? There is still some semblance of education going on for most, and for those that isn’t increased attention should be paid.

Repeating a year will delay all children for many future generations and increase the issue - so not an option. The only sensible and practicable arrangement is intervention programmes, quality first teaching starting with the needs of the child. This needs time and money.

They're only 'behind' as far as the assessment system says they are. So just reduce the curriculum, reduce breadth and depth of assessment temporarily. Repeating etc is an enormous logistical challenge that will have far reaching implications.

What are they needing to 'catch up' with? It's self defined by the education system.

Totally agree @cyclingtowardsbethlehem

Children will be fine - people miss years and years of education due to illness and lots of reasons and they see fine.

I dare say that some children will be fine.

Children who are academically capable, self motivated, with family that’s both able and willing to support their learning will probably be fine.

Not all children will be fine. Even before Covid, not all children finished their education with everything being “fine”.

All the academic disruptions that Covid has caused is likely to make things worse and increase the proportion of children who leave school without achieving basic qualifications.

@MatildaStoker maybe I should rephrase- children will be impacted, we all will be. But what are the other options? I believe in time, things will ease and the impact will not be as great as we perceive it to be. The most important thing is mental and physical health. Children will be caught up, or the system enhanced to support them. Educationally, children will be fine

An option (if we knew that we'll be returning to some kind of normal second half of this year) is to completely change the school year. Extend this one so the academic year runs from January to December each year (long summer holiday etc still stays the same). Kids now would stay on in their current year group to December and the Christmas break would signal the end of the year. It's only 3 months extra for current nursery age children to have to wait to start school. Exams taking place in the autumn won't be such a bad thing.

Isn’t the real issue that all the children are not in the same boat. Some schools are offering hours of learning and online teaching . Others are sending home worksheets and links to YouTube videos. Some kids have attended school throughout with the class teacher . While others like my own who has two full time working parents are at my 70 year old mothers house with no WIFI Monday to Friday so we are limited to what we can get done in the hour or two we have before after picking them up till bedtime.

Realistically this won't happen. Remember August's summer of catch up? What about private tuition? No, because it was all quietly shelved. Instead schools created their own recovery curriculum during the autumn term where all gaps that would not be covered during this school year were covered in one term crammed in alongside usual lessons. Not ideal, but at least schools are looking out for your children. Ignore what the government are saying. It's just PR and damage limitation

@dietcokeandchill I really, really hope you’re right.

But given that things didn’t turn out fine, educationally speaking, for all children pre-COVID, I have my doubts about the ability of schools and teachers to make everything right post-COVID.

But who knows? Maybe the government really will throw a load of resources at the education system so all children can be properly supported.

The best thing the govt could do is actually sit down and listen to Headteachers and educational experts. Not announce some clickbaity bollocks to keep parents happy.

There are so many differing issues to unwrap with children being 'behind'. Alongside children being academically 'behind'. Many are emotionally and socially behind. A considerable amount are anxious, lacking in confidence and stressed.
A broad curriculum needs to remain. The school day is pretty relentless these days and art, music, drama, PE and tech offer a creative and physical outlet for many. Schools also have the PSHE/Citizenship curriculum to cover, consisting of a myriad of subjects from road safety to grooming, to finances and budgeting.
Also kids are kids. They like down time, having a laugh and socialising. Most teachers saw a huge decline in low level behaviour/engagement in the run up to xmas. Kids were spending the whole time at home or at a school! They needs to time to catch up and have a but of fun, not always conducive to cramming more academia into their heads 🤷‍♀️