Extend the school year, say doctors

Children’s educational progress has been halted, but having longer year would ‘make up for lost time’

THE school year could be extended to ‘make up for time lost’ during the lockdown, an expert group of medics has said.

Their report found that educational progress has been halted, with primary school chidren most affected by school closures.

The national review by the HSE and the Royal College of Physicians says the key adverse consequences of the lockdown for children ‘were the prolonged closure of the schools and the curtailment of ‘paediatric medical services’ to children.

THE school year could be extended to make up for time that was lost during the lockdown, an expert group of medics has said.

Their report found that educational progress has been halted because of school closures, with primary school chidren most affected.

Welfare issues are also a concern with schoolchildren more exposed to incidents of domestic violence and family distress during the lockdown. Schools have been reopening this week and will continue over the coming weeks after shutting their doors in mid-March.

More than 567,000 primary school-children were affected by the closures.

The national clinical review on the impact of Covid-19 restrictions, complied by the HSE and the Royal College of Physicians, outlined the impact of school closures on students and their families. It found that primary school children are most affected because they are unable to participate in self-directed learning and are in need of constant support and direction. It stated that recently acquired knowledge is vulnerable to loss and the critical period for attainment of literacy skills and specifically reading is up to eight years.

‘Reading ability is the foundation for on-going vocabulary development and for wider educational attainment,’ the report said.

‘Delays in this development will have knock-on effects. Interaction with their peers, teaching staff and the wider school community is important for the development of children’s communication, physical and social skills.’

The authors of the report included Dr Ellen Crushell, national clinical lead for children, Dr John Murphy, national neonatology clinical lead and Jacqueline de Lacy, programme manager for the National Communities Project for Children.

They stated: ‘It is our collective opinion that the two key adverse consequences for all children across the State are the prolonged closure of the schools and the curtailment of services to children – specifically paediatric medical services, GP services, and multidisciplinary community support services. We feel that there needs to be

‘Concerns about child welfare’

a recalibration of how children are catered for in this pandemic.’

They also said that consideration should be given to extending the school year to ‘make up for lost time’.

Among other findings, the experts said that children with additional learning and special needs are disproportionately affected.

It found that the effects on children with complex disabilities and their families have been ‘profound’ with many experiencing regression of skills that were not easily gained.

It is feared that anxiety levels for children may increase due to lack of socialisation and loss of routines.

‘The State uses schools as a mechanism for the implementation of support services such as school meals, child protection issues, vaccination, dental and hearing and screening programmes – these are significant public health issues that need to supported and protected through the school system,’ the report said.

‘There are added concerns about child welfare due to rise in family distress, domestic violence, parental alcohol intake and excessive time being spent by children on the internet.

‘Educational settings are a natural area of vigilance of child welfare.’

Tanya Ward, chief of the Children’s Rights Alliance, said: ‘There are two schools of thought on this. One is that in order to bridge the gap that children experienced in their education, there is a need to extend the school year.

‘But there is also a view that it is not fair on young people to do that.’

She said a third way, which the CRA endorsed, would be to bring in extra supports for disadvantaged students, who might otherwise drop out of school entirely.

Ms Ward said: ‘The Government needs to act quickly on a strategy to address educational disadvantage, to close the gap for young people who have missed out on so much school.’

She suggested that as soon as the school year began, there should be an immediate assessment to see what students’ educational levels were, after the break. ‘It is critical in the case of educational disadvantage, that you bring in the right people to work on these issues,’ she said. ‘It does not need to be inevitable that young people will drop out of school.’

Ms Ward said that children and young people must be at the heart of any discussions about how to address the loss of education they had suffered.