Some school pupils have lost more than two months’ learning

SOME secondary school children have lost more than two months worth of learning, according to a Government report which states that the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers may have widened in the pandemic.

Researchers said the findings show that pupil catch-up interventions need to be “heavily targeted at the poorest pupils”.

The research commissioned by the Department for Education to understand the progress pupils make in the 2020-21 academic year found that all year groups in England have experienced a learning loss in reading, ranging from 1.6 months to two months.

The learning losses in mathematics were greater, with primary school learning losses averaging just over three months, but due to small sample sizes it was not possible to provide an estimate for secondary schools.