RECOVERY WILL LONG-TERM PLAN
countries like Portugal on the promise of a seven-day warning of any change and the Government makes it in five.”
Elizabeth added: “I’m a nurse and I’d been looking at two weeks’ unpaid leave if we hadn’t cut our holiday short. I’m going back more stressed than when I left.”
Two weeks ago Harley Heaton-curtis, 27, arrived to start a summer bar job but he was one of eight let go by his boss
we need a long-term plan to recover from the biggest disruption in education since the Second World War.”
Sir Kevan, who has worked in education for 30 years, was appointed school catch-up tsar in February and had said the recovery programme should also offer sport, music “and the rich range of activities that define a great education”.
He also believed schools in England should extend their days for three years, to ensure any extracurricular or creative activities are not squeezed out.
However, this is not what has been announced, and the current plan will include £1billion to support up to six million 15-hour tutoring courses for disadvantaged children, as well as an expansion of the 16-19 tuition fund.
Some £400million is to help give training and support to early years practitioners and 500,000 teachers, while some Year 13 students will be able to repeat their final year.
Sir Kevan said: “After the hardest of years, a comprehensive recovery plan – adequately funded and sustained over multiple years – would rebuild a stronger and after Portugal was moved onto the amber list. He said: “I can’t blame him because he had taken us on banking on a good summer with the Brits. I don’t understand all these constant changes.”
Their frustrations were shared bytim Alderslade, the boss of Airlines UK, who told Radio 4’stoday programme there was “no consistency” in how countries moved up or down the lists.
fairer system.a half-hearted approach risks failing hundreds of thousands of pupils.the support announced by the Government so far does not come close to meeting the scale of the challenge and is why I have no option but to resign from my post.”
Ellen Townsend, professor of psychology at Nottingham University, agreed, saying children are suffering severe mental health problems due to the lack of focus on their needs throughout the pandemic and postpandemic period.
She said: “There is good literature to show children should be put first during a disaster and looked after first as we come out of a disaster.we have not done this.”
Professor Townsend added: “Experts have now identified a youth mental health emergency linked to the pandemic, because young people are in such a bad way and hospitals are saying extreme cases of selfharm, eating disorders and depression have escalated as a result of lockdown.we don’t have all the data yet but we know eating disorders have skyrocketed among children as well as tics,tourettes and depression.
“A child’s resilience is based on the resources they have to nourish themselves. It is not finite and there is no endless internal source of resilience.
“As adults we have to provide those resources and it is galling the amount of money that has been spent on physical health for adults. Hundreds of billions have been thrown at coronavirus and lateral flow tests. It feels grossly unfair to spend relatively so little on the children.”
“Millions of days of education have also been lost.a lack of education is life limiting and a child with a more enriched and sustained education is more likely to live a longer life. We have jeopardised children’s chances by taking away quality education and face-to-face interactions which are vital to their development.”
‘It is grossly unfair to
spend so little’