A month into the new school term, it’s becoming painfully obvious to teachers which of their pupils spent much of lockdown reading, writing and practising their maths - and which ones learned next to nothing as they led a “feral”, hand-to-mouth existence.

Some will have experienced domestic violence or suicide in their family, or are suffering as a result of their parents’ worsening mental health.

And, just as many teachers had feared, it is increasingly clear that a lack of access to online learning has left disadvantaged pupils even further behind than they were before lockdown - in some cases creating an “unbridgeable” gap.

In this, the latest in a series of articles about the widening of the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their peers, Tes speaks to senior leaders in three different primary schools and learns about the scale of the problem, and some of the measures being used to close the gap.

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The first time Tes caught up with headteacher Paul Jackson, of  Manorfield Primary, in East London, was during lockdown, in June, when he was concerned that some children “weren’t engaging at all” because they lacked the IT technology.

He can already see the results of that lack of digital access this term, despite his staff having yet to carry out formal assessments of children.

Almost two-thirds of pupils at Manorfield are eligible for free school meals, and the majority do not speak English at home.

Coronavirus: The impact of school closures on disadvantaged pupils

“The children who were accessing things online have developed OK,” Mr Jackson says. “But we’ve got a number of children who haven’t had that access and they definitely haven’t progressed, they are behind, and we’re looking at what we can put in place.”

That support includes teaching them how to use Zoom and the Oak Academy online learning platform, as well as identifying which families should receive the government’s free laptops.

His concerns about the effects of lockdown - and the yawning digital divide it has highlighted - chime with the findings of a Tes survey of more than 3,000 teachers, heads and other school staff working in primaries.

The vast majority of respondents felt that the pandemic had increased the attainment gap at their school, with more than a quarter saying the gap had become a “chasm” (see chart, below)

Extra PE lessons for pupils who’ve gained weight

Lockdown isn’t just having an academic impact; schools are also seeing a decline in pupils’ physical health this term.

Mr Jackson says: “We know that we have got children who have definitely put weight on where they haven’t had particularly good diets over lockdown, and we’re looking at what we can do around PE and additional exercise and talking about good diets with those children.”

And there are concerns about the social and emotional toll that the pandemic has had on pupils.

Back in June, Mr Jackson was concerned that some disadvantaged pupils would “not have any decent level of conversation during lockdown”, and that younger children would have lost socialising skills.

Again, his fears have been realised.

“We’ve got a lot of [early years] children where their speech and language is well behind, where their personal and social skills and their fine motor skills, they are definitely behind in their development, without a doubt,” he says.

“And we’ve got some children where there’s definitely some social care issues that we’ve seen, and referrals that have come in. We sadly had one family where an older brother committed suicide just last week with some mental health issues, so that’s been a real worry. So there are concerns around mental health and wellbeing in the community definitely.”

These problems featured heavily in Tes’ survey, with one teacher commenting: “Some children have come into school a shell of their former selves. No confidence having not completed any home learning, they haven’t been eating properly, they lost their social skills, they are not OK.”

Another said: “Some children are years behind where they should be and their self-confidence is so low that they are finding it difficult to engage with learning.”

Others were particularly concerned about pupils who may have had no opportunity to speak English during their time away from school.

One state primary school teacher from England said lockdown had left their pupils struggling with both English language skills and classroom behaviour.

“Our cohort is a mix of EAL and low-income families - I have children who haven’t spoken English for six months to others who have gone feral,” they said.

‘Exceptional behaviour’

But on the upside, behaviour has improved this term, Mr Jackson says, partly as a result of the school’s “split day” where half of pupils attend in the morning and the other half attend in the afternoon, which means there is no lunch time, a “pinch point” for poor behaviour, he says, because of increased social interactions.

“Behaviour is [now] exceptional in a pleasantly surprising way. There is a real feeling of children enjoying being back in the classroom.”

Behaviour is “very positive”, too, at Peareswood Primary, in Erith, South London, where almost 40 per cent of pupils are eligible for free school meals.

That’s partly because of the “increase in structure” in pupils’ lives since they came back, and because the year group bubbles are “working really well”, says headteacher Carla Ferla.

Worsening mental health of parents

But like Mr Jackson, she also speaks of the worsening mental health issues in the community among parents and carers, which are having a knock-on effect on disadvantaged children.

Chatting with parents at the school gates is proving to be a crucial way of finding out some of the issues affecting children.

She says: “In the morning every single member of staff is outside. We’re outside welcoming the parents, carers and children, and that’s where we gain so much. It’s a listening ear.”

The school has also brought in a “social and emotional mental health teacher” who works with whole classes as part of the bespoke recovery curriculum.

Fairies and superheroes

“We try and bring the excitement to the children because that cultural capital was missing for them [during lockdown],” she says.

“So we have launch days [where] one day we have one year group, one bubble, all dressed up as fairies, say, looking for fairies in forest school. And we have somebody else [other pupils] dressed as superheroes. It’s just about bringing things to life.

“It’s just making sure that we continue with that but just [also] having a close eye on the wellbeing and making sure that mental health is right, and especially linked to the most recent lockdown.”

‘Invest in teaching assistants’

A decade’s progress on closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates could have already been lost during the pandemic, according to analysis published by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) in June.

And the EEF has announced that three major studies will take place in hundreds of schools to try to better understand the size of the gap and how to close it.

But it will never narrow unless schools invest in their teaching assistants, says Aimee Durning, Tes classroom support assistant of the Year 2019, who works at University of Cambridge Primary School (UCPS).

She says: “We’ve spent a huge amount of the professional development budget on teaching assistants because they’re going to be the ones on the front line, even though they were never mentioned at any time during lockdown: it was all about teachers. No offence.

“Teaching assistants are there working with the disadvantaged and children with special educational needs so unless the government and others invest like we have here, where our headteacher has invested in them, how will the gap ever be narrowed?

Luke Rolls, assistant headteacher at UCPS, says: “It’s important as well to think about the quality of those interventions...what’s the bespoking of that teaching to the needs of the individual children? Rather than just sort of saying, ‘We now do this intervention,’ it needs to be responsive.”

But, despite evidence that - deployed effectively - teaching assistants can be one of the best ways to help to close the learning gap, financial pressures mean schools are not always able to pay for the classroom support they need.

One teacher, responding to Tes’ survey said: “At the moment, the [attainment] gap is noticeable. I fear it will grow and widen as we go through the year as they will find it more difficult to catch up and go at the pace that we are having to teach. Lack of TAs also concerns me as there is limited support over the week to support these children. Budget cuts!”

‘Places turned down’

The process of carrying out detailed interviews and combing through thousands of survey responses for this series of articles has highlighted the huge mountain that many pupils will have to climb as a result of the pandemic. But it also suggests that disadvantage comes in various forms. 

A common theme in the survey was that some so-called “advantaged” children with two working parents may not have been received much, if any, homeschooling for months on end, so may need extra support.

Another finding was that disadvantaged pupils who attended school during lockdown, where possible, were often - perhaps unsurprisingly - doing significantly better than those who had not gone in.

One respondent said: “We noticed huge progress for those disadvantaged pupils who were in school, particularly in their self-confidence and oracy skills. Too many vulnerable families who were offered places turned them down and took no part in home learning despite help and support from staff in school. These pupils are finding [it] the hardest to settle back and accept expectations.”

However, several teachers said disadvantaged pupils had been taken out of school altogether this term, ostensibly for Covid safety reasons - echoing the findings of a recent Ofsted report.

What is working/not working for disadvantaged pupils in your school? Let us know: dave.speck@tesglobal.com