Oxford study -effects of school closures

[TeddingtonTrashbag]

Report of study by Oxford University

The impact of lockdown on education

*by Ross Clark (The Spectator)

Just how damaging has lockdown been to children’s education? An Oxford University study has tried to quantify it by analysing data from Dutch schoolchildren, who, unlike in Britain, where exams were cancelled – took tests before and shortly after the first lockdown last spring.

If any country’s children had managed to get through lockdown with their education unscathed, suggest the authors, it ought to be those in the Netherlands. There, schools were closed for a relatively short period – eight weeks – and the penetration of broadband in homes is higher than any other country. Yet that did not stop children regressing by an average of three percentage points in their test scores between last February and June.

More worryingly still, the level of parental education was a big predictor of falling performance – the less academically qualified the parents, the more the children regressed: with scores falling by 60 per cent more in groups with the least-educated parents. It confirms what has been suspected in Britain, too – that home-schooling favours children with proactive parents who have the skills and inclination to step in as surrogate teachers.

The Oxford study looked at test results in eight- to 11-year-olds in 15 per cent of Dutch primary schools, and compared the change in performance between February and June with what it had been in previous years. It found that ten-year-olds were, by a small margin, the age group most affected. Reading skills were most affected, followed by maths and spelling. The drop-off in performance was most acute among those who, prior to lockdown, had been in the middle of the ability range. Those at the top fared a little less badly, perhaps because they had more motivation to work during lockdown. Those at the bottom also fared a little less badly, possibly because their performance had less far to fall. Girls’ performance lapsed a little more than that of boys.

The study affirms one of the drawbacks of cancelling exams and tests in English schools: we have no proper data to analyse the effect of lockdown on English schoolchildren. On the contrary, the effects of lockdown in England have been masked by the use of unadjusted predicted grades for the purposes of GCSE and A-levels. Anyone looking in isolation at the exam results of last year relative to earlier years, knowing nothing of Covid-19, would come to the conclusion that children suddenly became a lot more intelligent or that teaching standards underwent a dramatic improvement. They would not guess that actually, the opposite has almost certainly happened, and the abilities of children have nosedived due to the interruption of education. We can be thankful to the Dutch, at least, for persisting with tests which have revealed that, even in the ‘best case scenario’ of a short lockdown and good broadband, the education of primary schoolchildren has been deeply affected.

Read more from Ross Clark on Coffee House.

I agree it's a mistake to cancel certainly the SATs.
But all our exams are adjusted anyway so it would be hard to compare to other years anyway as even if they all did 20% worse the best of the 'bad bunch' would be given an adjusted top mark.

Re primary age my eldest is still i think where they would have been without lockdown. (9yo).
I think my reception child is behind but that is because school chose not to subscribe to any reading books so weve missed
16/70 books this year and worse instead of assessing where dc is we seem to have carried on with the books we would have had in jan (sh/ch/ng etc) rather than moving onto ai/or etc books. So we are actually behind by that term even though they covered it in lockdown.
Also think we are behind with key words.

Exams are cancelled but on. My yr11 child is facing 5 weeks of "assessments" next half term.

Thanks OP. I think that's really interesting.

Exams are cancelled but on. My yr11 child is facing 5 weeks of "assessments" next half term.

It's four weeks of small assesments -and first day back there were two and then two weeks of longer exams for my Y11. They did mocks in Nove/Dec as well.

However extended family keep insisting exams are cancelled.

@Wakemeuuuup

Exams are cancelled but on. My yr11 child is facing 5 weeks of "assessments" next half term.

And there will be no comparability or way of analysing these results. The article is right - only standardised, external exams can be interpreted in any meaningful way.

I personally believe that our children and young people have been thrown under a bus. They have been disgracefully let down by depriving them of almost a year of meaningful education or assessment. Shameful.

@Wildswim

I personally believe that our children and young people have been thrown under a bus. They have been disgracefully let down by depriving them of almost a year of meaningful education or assessment. Shameful.

Yes. But they haven't just been deprived of formal education. They have also lost a year of socialising with kids their own age, playing sport and generally just being kids, with so much stuff that comes with that, be it birthday parties or sleepovers. My 4 year old is now terrified at the thought of getting into a swimming pool.

Not to mention that many kids have been taught to fear human contact due to the perceived risks of Covid. My friend's toddler cowers in fear at the sight of anyone who isn't her mum or dad.

Schools in 2020 could have been closed for only 8 weeks if the government had acted promptly last March, and perhaps also one week just before Christmas. Had there been prompt action, at least some exams could have been sat in summer 2020- I would have said GCSE English and Maths if asked to choose.