2m miss out on home schooling:

Study finds ‘learning losses are much greater than feared’, with poorest children doing least work

By Camilla Turner EDUCATION EDITOR MORE than two million children have done virtually no school work during lockdown, a study has found.

One in five pupils in the UK, which equates to around 2.3million children, either did no home learning at all or less than one hour a day according to a report by University College London’s Institute of Education.

Researchers analysed the findings of a longitudinal study where over 4,500

British households were asked about their children’s school work during the second half of April.

They found that children spent an average of 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork. This is around half that suggested by previous research which implies that “learning losses are much greater than feared”, academics said.

The poorest children, defined as those eligible for free school meals, did the least school work at home. Only one in 10 (11 per cent) spent more than four hours a day on schoolwork, compared with nearly a fifth (19 per cent) of their wealthier peers.

Prof Francis Green, who led the study, said that the new findings paint a “gloomy picture” about the amount of work children have done during lockdown. “The closure of schools, and their only-partial reopening, constitute a potential threat to the educational development of a generation of children,” he said.

“Everyone is losing out in this generation, some much more than others. Better home school work provision, and better still an early safe return to school for as many as possible, should now become a top priority for government.”

The study found that there is a huge gulf between the amount of home learning carried out by pupils at state and private schools.

Nearly a third (31 per cent) of private schools provided four or more online lessons each day, compared with just 6 per cent of state schools.

Researchers also found regional disparities, with just 9 per cent of children in the North East doing at least four pieces of school work a day compared with the national average of 20 per cent.

A separate report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) found that four in 10 pupils are not in regular contact with teachers.

The study published today, based on a survey conducted in May, revealed that even where pupils were set assignments by teachers, the levels of pupil engagement remained low with less than half of pupils (42 per cent) on average returning their last piece of set work.

Carole Willis, the NFER’S chief executive, said there is a “pressing need” for a long-term plan on how children will catch up on the learning they are missing out on while schools are closed.

“This supports a growing evidence base highlighting the risk of the attainment gap widening as a result of this pandemic,” she added.

The report comes amid rising concern about the plight of children who face being out of school for six months. Downing Street has come under fire for its policy on schools reopening, which has included rowing back on plans to allow all primary school pupils back to the classroom before summer.

Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, is expected to announce this week a series of “catch up” programmes for children who have fallen behind during lockdown. This will include a national plan for setting up summer camps where children will be able to do arts and crafts and other activities.

Downing Street defended the Government’s “significant support” for children’s education at home during the lockdown.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We are making over £100million available to support children to learn at home, providing laptops, tablets and 4G routers to those without internet access.”

Last month, Sage published a tranche of documents detailing the evidence that had been provided to the Government on whether it was safe to allow pupils to return to the classroom.

The Sage advice revealed that ministers were warned ahead of the decision to open schools that children will suffer lifelong damage because of lockdown.