Pandemic widens the maths gap

THE pandemic has left disadvantaged seven and eight-year-old pupils nine months behind their peers in reading skills and eight months behind in maths.

The Education Endowment Foundation and National Foundation for Educational Research followed 6,000 pupils who were in reception and year one in March 2020 until spring 2022.

On average, they found that pupils who were in year three in spring this year had caught up in both reading and maths compared with pupils before the pandemic.

But for the disadvantaged, the picture was bleaker.

Professor Becky Francis, chief executive of the EEF, said: “The findings add to a heavy body of evidence telling us that socio-economic inequality in education has grown.”

Those behind the study are calling for pupil premium funding – targeted at poorer pupils – to be protected.