Spending just £50 per pupil is appalling...

ADULTS across the country seem to be making the assumption that children will simply bounce back.

For those who have children, this is quite clearly not a reality.

The resignation of Sir Kevan Collins should be a stark wake-up call to those who have elected to ignore Generation Lockdown, but still Parliament seems obstinate in its dismissal of England’s youth.

A mere £50 for each pupil is an appalling sum and barely scrapes the surface of the deeper issues this pandemic has created for my generation; the developing mind is vulnerable and, when dramatic changes occur, we cannot simply go back to normal.

What’s needed is a holistic approach, a response that will take the social and emotional burden of the last year into account so that well-rounded adults will emerge from our school system rather than confused, overworked children. Mental health issues are more prevalent than ever,

‘We cannot simply go back to normal’

particularly for young people as our lives have transitioned online.

More than ever there is a huge amount of vulnerability for teens and children today that is being ignored – the waiting lists for services such as CAMHS are disgustingly long, with some children having waited over a year to be seen at the end of 2020.

The services children need are underfunded, the services that the Government thinks we need are underfunded, and the general response to my generation’s plight has been apathetic.

Many will argue that people my age are not getting sick so there’s no point complaining, that we’re ungrateful and oversensitive – responses like that demonstrate how far away an individual is from their own youth.

Imagine if you were a child or a teenager in the world of today – if you had been shut out of school physically for a year, in constant uncertainty regarding the future, and, particularly for disadvantaged families, had no access to education at all.

It is easy to forget, from a distant and privileged position, that there are many unspoken victims of the pandemic: not only of the virus itself, but of the measures imposed on us.

Generation Lockdown are not pretending they are the only victims.

All we ask is that we are no longer forgotten or dismissed by those who think an entire generation of children can bounce back as though this catastrophic year hasn’t happened.