The response to Covid failed our young – this cannot happen again

Government to recognise the sacrifices that children made during Covid with a well-funded programme to get every child back on track. We called on the Government to be ambitious about supporting schools to stay open longer and to offer after-school clubs and weekend activities.

Sadly, those calls were largely ignored. In the context of other pandemic spending, the resource and political capital put aside for children has been piecemeal.

What is particularly frustrating is that many predicted that the pandemic

‘The scale of child mental health is deeply worrying and we have a school attendance crisis’

and its disruption to learning, social development, and play would have terrible consequences for some vulnerable and disadvantaged children. While the Government at the time was talking levelling up, Covid was levelling down many young people’s opportunities.

The attainment gap is growing, the scale of child mental health problems is still deeply worrying, and we have a school attendance crisis of previously unseen proportions.

If we are worried about the numbers of people unable to work due to their mental health now, what can we expect when tens of thousands of children who have struggled without real help since lockdown leave school and enter the workforce?

How will those children who fell out of the routine of going to school adapt once they are looking for work or having to hold down jobs?

What will be the impact on society of children whose development was held back when they were toddlers or primary school children?

We don’t know yet, but it would be extraordinary if our nation’s prosperity and productivity were not affected. The failure to take catch-up and children’s recovery seriously is not just a long-term problem for those children suffering from the impact of lockdown, it is a national problem for us all.

As I told the Covid Inquiry last year, the pandemic response overlooked children and so failed many of them. We can’t let this happen again.

It isn’t too late to prioritise catch-up and recovery funding. We can’t afford to write off thousands of our children.

It is in the national interest to recognise the damage that was done and to put it right.

Anne Longfield CBE is chair of the Centre for Young Lives and was children’s commissioner for England