It is fair to say that Wells, eight, does not enjoy remote learning. “It’s horrible,” he tells a group of fellow year 4 children over a video call. “I can see my friends, but I can’t talk to them.” Emily, nine, finds home schooling tough, too: “It’s really, really boring. I’m sad. But I like being able to play with my guinea pigs.” Flora, also nine, agrees lockdown learning isn’t all bad: “It’s fun solving maths problems with my granny on Skype, and I get to have yummy snacks, like chocolate biscuits, all day.”
But they would all prefer to be at school. “There’s less distraction,” says Betty, who has two younger siblings and is expected to work independently in the afternoons. “When you’re in class, you can talk to your teacher and ask for help,” Ainhoa says. “Privately,” Wells adds. “You get their individual attention.” The children talk about feeling frustrated, stressed and even exhausted at the end of the school day. “Sometimes I just want to scrunch up the paper into pieces,” Ainhoa admits. “I really miss playing with my friends in the playground,” Flora says.
The full impact of school closures is yet to be understood. But there are already worrying signs that primary schoolchildren may be suffering more than older children in terms of emotional and physical wellbeing, and the learning lost.
“What we’re really worried about is ‘education scarring’, when you miss out on a key stage of development, like learning to read,” says Lee Elliot Major, professor of social mobility at the University of Exeter. His research shows primary pupils suffered greater learning loss than secondary pupils in the first lockdown, suggesting it may have been harder for young children to learn remotely. “There has been a lot of public policy debate about GCSEs and A-levels, but we need to think about the losses among children at such a formative age.”
Already, there are signs that the pandemic has had an impact on children’s ability to write – their grasp of a more sophisticated vocabulary and sentence structures. In September, a study of 112,000 pupils in the first year of secondary school found their writing skills were 22 months behind where they should be. “It is difficult to get kids to write a page on something, rather than one-word or one-sentence answers,” says Sammy Wright, schools lead for the Social Mobility Commission. “When you look at a lot of the online work that’s set, it doesn’t cater well for extended writing.”
Younger children typically also require more parental engagement when learning from home, he adds: “To keep a six-year-old on task, you need to interact with them.” This disdavantages primary pupils from busy, single-parent and low-income households. Children from poorer families also often start primary school with a smaller vocabulary and, Wright says, “There is no doubt that effect will be heightened by lockdown.”
Even among affluent families, 10 months of disrupted and remote learning is likely to prove a serious obstacle to overcome. “It’s a huge proportion of their schooling to date,” Wright says.
Ed Finch, a primary schoolteacher, has witnessed some regression already. “In my class, the maths dropped away. Skills we would have practised every day had not been repeated, so children had forgotten them – which means confidence slips.” Even pupils who were always prepared to have a go may now get teary when faced with a problem they can’t immediately solve, he says: “They are more scared to try new things.”
At school, he points out, children are told that it’s all right to make mistakes – and teachers know how to manage behaviour and concentration problems, gently encouraging pupils “without being overt about it”. At home, parents struggling to manage work or financial worries may not be as knowledgeable, patient or supportive. School work can easily become another source of stress: “There’s a temptation for parents to say: ‘Well, I’ll just show you how we used to do long division’ or whatever. Then the child gets more confused.”
This is borne out by studies showing both high levels of stress in the first lockdown among parents of children under 10, and a rising proportion reporting significant emotional, behavioural and concentration difficulties in their children. “We know from previous research that when parents are under stress, it’s very difficult for them to parent in the way they would want to,” says Cathy Creswell, professor of developmental clinical psychology at the University of Oxford. “They will tend to have a shorter fuse and be less tolerant of behaviour problems. That can create a vicious cycle.”
Dr James Biddulph, executive headteacher of University primary school in Cambridge, is worried his pupils “are starting to disengage. Their confidence had been knocked by being at home.” He thinks this is partly because of separation from their friends and from the consistency and security school provides, and partly because children are being forced to reveal to their parents the gaps in their knowledge. “In the first lockdown, we had parents saying, ‘We didn’t realise our children couldn’t do these things.’ It caused anxiety.”
This is not good for children’s learning or mental health, says Alicia Drummond, child therapist and founder of online wellbeing hub Teen Tips. “Parents worried about their children getting behind are doing all they can to keep them up to speed. That level of intensity puts pressure on young children.”
It can also reduce their sense of self-worth, and feeling loved just for who they are, Drummond says. “When, as parents, we focus our attention on what children are doing – such as schoolwork or behaviour – they can feel their sense of ‘being OK’ is determined by what they do. That’s not good for their self-esteem, and causes some to regress, for example bedwetting or needing a lot more parental interaction.” Sibling rivalry in some families has been “horrific” as children compete for attention.
At the same time, some children have grown more resilient. Instead of being able to put up their hand and ask the teacher for help, many have struggled, but then successfully managed their work alone. They may also have learned they can get through tough times. “Some will have developed healthy coping strategies ,” Drummond says. “Others will have learned more self-awareness and empathy.”
Finch says some primary schoolchildren have thrived on opportunities to develop new skills and work on long-term projects. “When I see a child produce a beautiful poem or work of art, and the parent says: ‘He just wanted to carry on’, I think: that child needed hours to do that, and we couldn’t give them that time at school.” In a study by the Parent Ping app, which asks subscribers two questions a day and offers tailored support, the majority of parents – particularly fathers – also said their family has become closer over the past year.
At Parklands primary school in Leeds, where 68% of children qualify for free meals and only 18% had access to a laptop in the first lockdown, headteacher Chris Dyson is surprisingly positive about remote learning. “Those who loved reading really accelerated,” he says. Children also engaged in more outdoor learning. “They were climbing trees, going on nature walks, collecting things. Parents got a chance to spend quality time with them, in beautiful weather, that they may never get again.”
There are other silver linings. Wright says the demand for online learning means there is a wider understanding of the digital divide that exists between children. He also thinks schools have had to “grasp the nettle of technology”.
Biddulph believes his pupils with autism and other complex needs “flourished” in lockdown. “For them, being in school all day is very pressured; learning at their own pace has been better for them.”
This is not a universal experience, of course: a Bath Spa University study found that 73% of special educational needs coordinators said their schools had experienced challenges providing support for children in the first lockdown; 80% also said schools had found it difficult to provide differentiated learning for these children online.
The mental health impact on children has been significant. A survey by Barnardo’s, carried out in May and June, found that 41% feel lonelier now than before lockdown, while 38% feel more worried. Helen Dodd, professor of child psychology at the University of Reading, points out that a lot of social and emotional development, as well as physical activity, happens at school outside formal lessons. “Children are missing out on important opportunities to play together, and may be less physically active. This can lead to loneliness and puts children’s mental and physical health at risk.”
Spending time alone in front of screens, instead of enjoying playdates and outdoor games with friends, is bad for their wellbeing, says Dr Ronny Cheung, a consultant paediatrician at the Evelina children’s hospital in London. “Remote learning doesn’t allow for structured physical activity, which is critical for developing motor skills.”
Schools will need “massive” investment to reverse the damage caused by the pandemic, warns Simon Burgess, professor of economics at the University of Bristol. “Children are way behind where they should be, and that’s not going to sort itself out.” But while evidence from school closures overseas shows they can cause lasting damage to education and significantly lower pupils’ average lifetime earnings, Cheung worries that too much pressure will be placed on pupils to catch up as quickly as possible. “This is an entire generation who have had a year of normal development put on hold. We need to be patient.”
Childline says the monthly average number of counselling sessions it delivers to children under 11 has increased by 16% since the first lockdown began. One eight-year-old girl told the charity: “I don’t get any attention. I don’t see Dad much, and live with just my mum in a tiny flat. Sometimes we get so angry with each other, we end up fighting.”
Nerys Hughes, clinical director of Whole Child Therapy, is seeing a rise in control disorders such as self-harm, anorexia and separation anxiety. “The number of critical meetings I am having for children is going through the roof,” she says. Some are as young as seven. “They know how to measure their success at school. If that’s taken away from them, they feel as if they’re failing.”
Drummond says it is important for parents to tell their children they love them as they are, that they will not be judged by their school work. She also wants parents to relax more and use their own judgment. “If a child is getting sick of lessons – they’re getting stressed, you’re getting stressed – then get rid of the screens. Let them get on with something else. Give yourself a break.”
Hughes says it is important for parents to think about the opportunities their children have to succeed or win at something each day. “Where is a seven-year-old’s joy at the moment? Where’s their sense of, ‘I did this, I learned something hard’?”
She is hopeful that many families are developing stronger bonds. “We’re learning more about our children’s sense of humour and the things they like to do. When we come out the other end, I think we’re going to find more joy in the little moments. They’ll appreciate going to school and will probably build more meaningful relationships with friends. And we will all know the value of education.”
