Last week we published a study on the attainment of primary school pupils in key stage 1.

It outlined the negative impact that school disruption and partial closures had on these pupils’ learning in reading and maths based on assessments taken by more than 10,000 key stage 1 pupils (five- to seven-year-olds) from 168 representative schools in the autumn term of 2020 and the spring and summer terms of 2021.

In particular, we found that children were, on average, around two to three months behind where they might have been had the pandemic not happened.

Furthermore, the gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers had widened from pre-pandemic levels. 

Our study was commissioned by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) and its findings align with other similar studies, such as this, which focused specifically on the disadvantage gap.

However, there was some good news too, mainly around the evidence that recovery is already beginning in maths, thanks to the hard work of teachers during 20 months of intense disruption.

By summer 2021, Year 1 pupils were only one month behind in maths and Year 2 pupils looked as if they had completely caught up.

Through suitably funded long-term support, learning recovery is therefore possible.

However, there is also clearly much more that needs to be done and some areas in which we believe efforts should be focused to achieve this - both by government and schools.

1. Focus help where it is needed most

Although the results we gathered suggest that recovery support should encompass all pupils, disadvantaged pupils have been the worst affected by school closures, suggesting specific targeted approaches should be employed for this group.

Recovery support should also be informed by diagnostic assessments as were used in this study.

For example, in our sample, vocabulary appeared hardest hit in Year 1 pupils along with pupils’ ability to read longer, less scaffolded texts in Year 2. 

Having been involved in the study from the outset and looking beyond average attainment, it is interesting to review what has happened to England’s persistent “long tail” of reading underachievement.

And it’s interesting because the children who struggle to learn to read were probably the same children whose support for reading completely evaporated when they were sent home. For example:

• In Year 2, we started in autumn 2020 with 5.2 per cent not being able to access the reading test as compared with 1.6 per cent pre-pandemic. By spring 2021 this had risen to 7.2 per cent.

• In Year 1, spring 2021 figures were 5.0 per cent compared to 2.6 per cent pre-pandemic and rose to 5.8 per cent by the summer.

At every sweep of the study, including the 2019 key stage 1 tests that were taken by Year 2s in the summer, the attainment gap was widest for reading at the bottom of the ability distribution.

While we can take some solace in the improvements in maths, it seems crucial that we focus much of our attention on teaching those youngest children who are struggling to read. The EEF has produced a range of resources to support young pupils’ early literacy development.

While the focus of the government’s recovery strategy on disadvantaged children will help here, it is important we direct our efforts to individual needs. 

2. IT provision - at home and in school 

A key part of the contextual information we obtained from school staff indicates that recovery programmes must enable IT access for all, both in school and at home.

If digital delivery is utilised to support recovery, a strong digital inclusion strategy will be required, particularly if school closures were to occur again.

This feels especially pertinent right now as we are seeing high levels of pupil absence in schools caused by the Covid-19 infection itself, as well as the need to stay at home while waiting for a PCR test result and an inevitably greater tendency for pupils to stay away from school when encouraged to do so, if even slightly ill.

As such, the huge gains in online home learning provision that were made between the first and second lockdowns must now be built upon so that at least older students can transition between the classroom and the screen with ease.

It is likely that mitigation of the effects of high infection rates using vaccines for children, boosters, test and trace and self-isolation will allow schools to remain open.

However, schools are high transmission zones and reasons for pupils to stay at home are likely to persist for a considerable time.

It seems that hybrid learning provision is the most efficient way to address this, but it is also critical to ensure the most vulnerable pupils have access to the necessary IT equipment and broadband services.  

3. Social skills and wellbeing 

The other issue that the pandemic brought to the fore for our youngest learners was concerns that their social skills would suffer.

However, for our sample, which was largely representative of the population, we did not find a significant impact of school closures on the social skills of these young children.

But the results did show that disadvantaged children performed worse on the social skills measure, as would be expected from the literature.

While the study did not measure wellbeing directly, school staff reported concerns about wellbeing, which is consistent with several other studies.

There needs to be adequate funding for wellbeing support and further investigation into innovative and effective support strategies.

In terms of mental health, we know from work done on attainment data linked to hospital episode records that adolescent depression is associated with a decrease in GCSE scores by around half a standard deviation.

This contrasts markedly with the mean effect size of educational interventions evaluated in recent years; around 0.06 standard deviations.

This means that lifting a young person out of depression is associated with an impact on educational outcomes in an order of magnitude greater than typical educational programmes.

This aspect of recovery appears to be lacking from the government’s strategy and needs urgent attention, and not just for improved educational outcomes of course but for the mental health and wellbeing of all our young learners.

Ben Styles is head of classroom practice and workforce at The National Foundation for Educational Research