Playing with friends helps children build confidence and learn social skills (Pic: Getty Creative)
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From summer schools to extended days, as full-time education once more becomes a possibility, plans are afoot to address the lockdown learning loss.
But children don’t need extra time in class, they need extra time with their friends.
The arrival of effective vaccines promises a return to regular schooling for millions of children around the world who have endured almost a year of disruption to their education.
Now, attention is shifting onto how to help them catch up with the lessons they have missed and the learning they have lost.
In the U.S., school districts would be expected to set aside 20% of their aid on addressing ‘learning loss’ through schemes such as summer schools, as part of a $129bn relief package now going through Congress.
Summer schools have influential backers, including California governor Gavin Newsom, who has allocated $4.6bn for extra learning time, including summer schools, while Virginia Governor Ralph Northam has called for class to be extended into the summer.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has endorsed summer schools, and last week President Biden said schools may look at holding classes all summer to help students catch-up.
Atlanta is one of a number of districts considering mandatory summer schools, with Superintendent Lisa Herring talking of the “necessity” of keeping students in class.
On the other side of the Atlantic, Boris Johnson’s government today announced an education recovering package with funding for summer schools and extra tutoring for children who have fallen behind.
There are a number of practical issues standing in the way of this approach. One is that the children most likely to benefit from extra teaching are the ones least likely to take part.
Research on summer schools by the U.K. charity the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) found that fewer than half of students in the target group attended.
EEF analysis of studies carried out both in the U.S. and U.K. also found that, to be effective, summer schools need to be intensive, well-resourced and with a clear academic focus. Even then, gains were small and summer schools were not found to be particularly cost-effective.
While mandatory participation along Atlanta’s proposed approach may address the problem of attendance, there still remains the issue of who would staff these summer schools.
After more than 12 months of battling with remote teaching, many teachers are hardly likely to relish the prospect of giving up their summer break to run summer schools.
And in their absence, there is no sign as yet of the army of reserve teachers who would provide the expertise summer schools need to be effective.
Another option is one-to-one or small group tuition. This offers the prospect of larger gains in learning, according to EEF studies, although it is a comparatively costly intervention.
But all this masks the real effect of lockdown on children and young people, which is that the biggest loss hasn’t been to their learning, it’s been to their well-being.
Children have lost out on their education, and the loss has been uneven. Students at well-resourced schools and in well-resourced homes have been in a better position to benefit from remote teaching. Some children may never make up this loss.
But the impact of this loss is less than the impact on young people’s friendships, on their social skills and on their mental health.
Children need to catch up with their friends, not their lessons.
The incidence of probable mental health problems among children aged five to 16 shot up dramatically during the early stages of the pandemic, according to a study published in The Lancet earlier this year, from around one in 10 (10.8%) in 2017 to almost one in six (16%) last year.
More than a quarter reported disrupted sleep and one in 10 children and young people said they were often or always lonely.
Earlier this week, the British Psychological Society warned that talk of lost learning represented an “unhelpful narrative” that could put unhelpful additional pressure on children and young people.
Instead, it said the focus should be on supporting children through socialisation and play.
Adding to the backlash against summer schools, earlier this month a group of academics in England, calling themselves PlayFirstUK, argued for a “summer of play” to help children recover from the stress of the last year.
Children learn so many skills through play that will serve them well in later life, whether it’s negotiating with other children, regulating their emotions or using their imagination to invent new games.
Children also need to spend time outdoors. Many children have been confined to their homes for much of the last year, and sitting in a classroom over the summer is the last thing they need.
And, as PlayFirstUK recognized, the opportunity to socialize and play with other children has a positive impact on learning and attainment.
It’s easy to understand the pressure policy-makers are under to make sure that disadvantaged children do not end up even further behind as a result of the pandemic.
But instead of trying to squeeze children into reaching targets set by adults – many of which are arbitrary in any case – we should recognize that there are some things more important.
After all they have been through over the past 12 months, children don’t deserve to spend their summers in a classroom, they deserve a break.
