Walkouts add to hardship for pupils who have had only one undisrupted school year

After self-isolation, lockdowns and staff shortages, year 11 now faces strikes by teachers

GCSE pupils have only had one year of undisrupted learning since starting secondary school as strikes are set to inflict further damage to their education.

Pupils in year 11 today in England have missed at least 111 days of school because of Covid lockdowns, and will likely have had dozens more days disrupted owing to enforced isolation and staff shortages during the pandemic.

The cohort has particularly suffered because, as Year 8 pupils in 2020, they were not prioritised for a return to school because they were not close to sitting exams. They now face multiple days of school closures in February and March as a result of strikes.

Robin Walker, the Conservative MP and chairman of the education select committee, said that strikes “must not inadvertently reinforce another damaging by-product of the pandemic, where time away from school became normalised in the minds of some pupils and their families”.

He said: “I urge the unions to continue to engage with the fact that out of every part of the public sector, education has been prioritised with the biggest proportionate increase in spending, and I would urge the Government to do everything it can to ensure that if strikes do go ahead, they are managed in a way that allows children to attend school.”

Molly Kingsley, of the Usforthem parents’ campaign group, accused the National Education Union of having “little regard for children’s welfare and also for families, because how are families supposed to work?”

She added: “In the pandemic, we let a really terrible precedent take root which was the idea that school could be switched on and off and that teaching could be done with a laptop. The

Department for Education has to quash that notion, whether by making a deal with the unions or by putting contingency plans in place.”

Figures published last week showed that one in seven pupils were absent from school at the end of last term, partly due to a rise in illness. MPS on the education select committee have launched an inquiry into persistent

absences from schools. Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, a social mobility charity, said that further school closures would be “catastrophic” for children.

He said: “Given the torrid time pupils are facing, Government and unions have to work together to avoid further school closures which would be catastrophic. Young people from low and moderate-income backgrounds have had a very difficult time and now need stability.

“Our research shows that poor mental health among young people has increased by more than a quarter since 2017. Schools are also seeing the impacts of the cost of living crisis on their pupils with almost seven in 10 teachers seeing increasing behaviour issues during the last autumn term. While a limited number of days of closures due to industrial action is not likely to create big issues for young people, extensive closures must be avoided at all cost.”

Mind, the mental health charity, has also raised the alarm, saying that an “entire cohort” of children aged seven to 16 have remained in “heightened states of distress for years following the educational, social and economic upheaval of Covid 19”.

Asked how important it is that teachers minimise further disruption, the charity warned that for those with mental health problems “routines help to keep us grounded and support our overall wellbeing”.