Families have been put under pressure

THE effect on schoolchildren of missing so much of their education over the past year has been one of the major concerns of the pandemic. While school years may seem endless to pupils, they are a relatively narrow window which can affect their life chances in many ways.

During the current lockdown getting children back into the classroom was one of the priorities of administrations throughout the UK and the reopening of schools has been the first easing of restrictions.

There has been much comment and concern during lockdown on how enforced homeschooling impacted on families. As regards the children, the concern centred on the lack of professional teaching and the lack of social development through mixing with their peer groups. For parents the concern was how to juggle home schooling with their own work and running a house.

Now we have worrying evidence that the impact on both children and parents was more serious than many people thought.

Research from Stranmillis University’s Centre for Research in Educational Underachievement shows that a staggering 80% of parents reported a negative impact on their mental health and wellbeing in having to homeschool and 67% said it had affected their physical health and wellbeing.

Half of parents/carers felt the current lockdown had worsened their children’s mental health.

These are statistics which should concern everyone.

We are all aware of the potential dangers of coronavirus — though these show a downward trend at the moment — but lockdown and its implications for families could be leaving a physical and mental ill-health legacy which could be with us for years.

On the positive side schools deserve credit for stepping up to the mark in helping parents homeschool with improved quality and quantity of learning resources and an increase in live online teaching.

That has required a big investment in money and time, neither of which was in plentiful supply due to the rapidly changing coronavirus landscape.

However, the recurrent downside in education — the gap between well-off well-educated families and those living closer to the poverty line — is likely to have widened during lockdown simply because there is no equality of digital access. That access is vital when classroom doors shut.

One lesson we can take from this report on lockdown is that parents worry about their children but who will be concerned about the impact on parents?