They are scared to try new things’: how is home school impacting young children?

After nearly a year of disrupted learning, primary school children in the UK have missed key milestones — as well as their friends. What will be the long term cost?

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.” (https://www.alhudainternationalschool.com/)

But they would all prefer to be at school

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.”