In 2013, academics looking at the psychology of dread carried out a seemingly cruel experiment. After attaching electrodes to the backs of 35 participants’ hands, they offered each person the choice between receiving a sharp electric shock immediately or waiting for a milder one. The researchers (Giles Story et al, 2013) found that 70 per of the time, the participants opted to receive more painful shocks right away. Anticipating an unpleasant experience was seemingly deemed worse than the experience itself.

This, and other similar experiments, illustrate that humans have a natural disposition to prefer certainty over uncertainty - whether that certainty is a nasty zap to the hand or, for example, terrible news about yourself or others. Certainty means that we are able to plan and work out how we can handle a situation - and, ultimately, that makes us feel more in control.

It’s fair to say that few people working in or attending schools will have felt in control of their situation over the past 12 months.

It’s not just been the pandemic and its undulating course but the ever-changing government guidance, the endless U-turns over exams and school closures, and the intense anxiety of potentially being exposed to the virus on a daily basis, not knowing if you might catch it.

What impact might all of that uncertainty have had on children when they were learning during the lockdown periods? And how might it impact those in schools now that all students are back in the classroom? Research by evolutionary psychologists (Brosschot, J, Verkuil, B, and Thayer, J, 2018) suggests that when people are exposed to uncertainty, feelings of safety are removed and the human brain reverts to its “default mode” of a fight-or-flight stress response.

Whistleblowers: Missing safety signals

It is important to note that this response occurs when normal day-to-day safety signals are absent, not just when there is actual physical danger. Imagine, for example, that a stranger is manning the school office rather than the usual Ms Smyth, says Mark Freeston, professor of clinical psychology at Newcastle University, who is leading a study into the relationship between uncertainty and distress in the context of Covid-19.

The direct threat of Covid illness will therefore not have been the only trigger of a fight-or-flight response among those who have attended schools: Freeston says disruption of daily, weekly and seasonal routines - as with lockdown - also leads to feelings of not being safe.

The impact of all this on learning will be direct, he argues. “When the stress response is released, then this impacts on various aspects of cognitive processes, including worry. It competes with resources, affects concentration and leads to fatigue and anxiety - this can impact on working memory,” he explains.

Freeston reveals that prolonged uncertainty has also been shown to have an impact on time perception and thus may affect a teacher’s or a pupil’s ability to plan effectively. “A stable time perception with a future-thinking perspective (linking past, present and future) is associated with many positive outcomes across areas of life and across the lifespan - including academic achievement, wellbeing, etc - probably due to the fact that people set future-oriented goals,” he explains.

Unfortunately, uncertainty is going to be a fixture of education for some time yet, with the pandemic continuing and “catch-up” prompting huge changes to timetables.

So, how should schools approach making staff and pupils feel safer, and thus less anxious and more able to teach and learn?

Children and adults are likely to experience negative effects stemming from feelings of dread but adults may have more experience of dealing with uncertainty, and children may be more reliant on adults to make them feel safe, Freeston says. As such, teachers will deal better with the situation in the coming months, but they will need to be even more available to children than they may have previously had to be.

What sort of support is best for those staff or pupils who do feel uncertain and anxious? According to research, the stress response can be inhibited by increasing someone’s perceived sense of security. This is achieved by providing them with “signals of safety”.

For many of us in lockdown, these have come in the form of familiar home comforts, home cooking and the nostalgic viewing of old TV series. In other words, we may be socially isolated, unable to see our parents and fearing for our lives, but there are episodes of Friends and Gilmore Girls to remind us of more certain times.

So, ensuring that as much as possible is familiar to all in the school is crucial. Yes, some things will need to change, but keep as much the same as you can.

If there is a regular weekly event/meeting, retaining it on the schedule could be more important than you think.

“Emphasising what is the same, developing new adapted routines and ways of doing things, and [making] progressive changes, all contribute to re-establishing safety,” says Freeston. “However, when changes happen quickly, [when] directives [come in] from outside, or when communication is poor, then it is hard to maintain the new signs of safety that teachers and parents will have worked hard to re-establish.”

One way to mitigate those inevitable unexpected changes is to make time for socialising. Research suggests that for social animals, such as humans, being part of a group is a crucially important source of safety (Brosschot, J, Verkuil, B, and Thayer, J, 2018), hence our early enthusiasm for Zoom calls.

With both of the above, though, it’s important to consider how “Covid-proof” the plans might be. “If goals are based on specific events and outcomes happening at a specific time, then these will remain vulnerable to outside influences, even as things improve over time,” says Freeston.

Bucket lists aren’t the answer

As such, the creation of “bucket lists of what to do after the pandemic” - as many schools have encouraged children to do - “may not be the antidote” because they depend on an unknowable end to the pandemic itself.

A way around this would be to emphasise gratification in the present, Freeston argues. “Experiencing aspects of the present as pleasurable and fun, despite restrictions, may help anchor people in the present and so re-engage with safety, and a timeline that has a past, a present and a future,” he says.

One helpful way of framing the next few months is to think of it as a transition period, advises Hannah Kinsey, head of training and service design at mental health charity Young Minds.

For example, think of all the things schools do for primary-secondary transition.

“People are quite well versed in putting in place the support structures around those sorts of [stressful] transitions, but what young people are living with at the moment is a year-long transition period of uncertainty, not knowing what is going to come next,” she says. Creating a sense of consistency and connection, she explains, is vital and can provide “an anchor in the storm”.

This, Kinsey says, could come in the form of teachers and other members of staff providing “daily check-ins” for students, particularly vulnerable ones.

“It’s about trying to make sure that you’ve got those touch points with them, having the same people looking out for them, because we know what is really important for young people is knowing that somebody is holding them in mind,” she says.

“It’s about maximising that as much as possible. It could literally be as much as a tiny check-in, just to say, ‘I’ve been thinking about you. I hope it’s going OK’. It doesn’t have to be a whole lesson.”

Talking about ideas around resilience and self-care is important, too, she says - and staff should take “the foot off the pedal a bit” with the academic side to allow this to happen.

So, there are things that a school can try to do in the here and now, but how long after the pandemic has waned might the impact of uncertainty and anxiety continue?

Freeston says that as the Covid uncertainty reduces and things become more predictable, many people will naturally recover and may even have gained resilience in the process.

But he adds that long-term mental health problems can begin with stressful life events. “So, with more people exposed to more stress, and prolonged stress, there may be more people than usual who may develop mental health problems,” he says.

Like academic recovery, it’s clear that mental wellbeing recovery will be a long-term project with no short-term fixes.

Irena Barker is a freelance journalistThis article originally appeared in the 19 March 2021 issue under the headline “Tes focus on...Uncertainty”effectively. “A stable time perception with a future-thinking perspective (linking past, present and future) is associated with many positive outcomes across areas of life and across the lifespan, including academic achievement, wellbeing, etc, probably due to the fact that people set future-oriented goals,” he says Freeston.

Unfortunately, uncertainty is going to be a fixture of education for some time yet, with the pandemic continuing and “catch-up” prompting huge changes to timetables. So how should schools approach making both staff and pupils feel safer, and thus less anxious and more able to teach and learn?

Children and adults are likely to experience negative effects stemming from feelings of dread, but adults may have more experience of dealing with uncertainty, and children may be more reliant on adults to make them feel safe, Freeston says. As such, teachers will deal better with the situation in the coming months, but they will need to be even more available to children than they may have previously had to be.

What sort of support is best for those staff or pupils who do feel uncertain and thus anxious? According to research, the stress response can be inhibited by increasing someone’s perceived sense of safety, by providing them with “signals of safety”.

For many of us in lockdown, these have come in the form of familiar home comforts, home cooking and nostalgic viewing of old TV series. In other words, we may be socially isolated, unable to see our mothers and fearing for our lives, but there are episodes of Friends and Gilmore Girls to remind us of more certain times.

So ensuring that as much as possible is familiar to all in the school is crucial. Yes, some things will need to change, but keep as much the same as possible. If there is a regular weekly event/meeting, keeping it on the schedule could be more important than you think.

“Emphasising what is the same, developing new adapted routines and ways of doing things, progressive changes, all contribute to re-establishing safety,” says Freeston. “However, when changes happen quickly, [when] directives [come in] from outside, or when communication is poor, then it is hard to maintain the new signs of safety that teachers and parents will have worked hard to re-establish.”

Meanwhile, research suggests that for social animals, such as humans, being part of a group is a crucially important source of safety [Brosschot, J, Verkuil, B, and Thayer, J, 2018], hence our early enthusiasm for Zoom calls. Ensuring that staff can still be social in a socially distanced way, then, will be key, as will time for pupils to be together away from the structures of the classroom.

With both of the above, though, you have to consider how “Covid-proof” the plans might be.

“If goals are based on specific events and outcomes happening at a specific time, then these will remain vulnerable to outside influences, even as things improve over time,” says Freeston.

As such, the creation of “bucket lists of what to do after the pandemic” - as many schools have encouraged children to do - “may not be the antidote” because they depend on an unknowable end to the pandemic itself.

A way around this would be to emphasise gratification in the present, Freeston argues.

“Experiencing aspects of the present as pleasurable and fun, despite restrictions, may help anchor people in the present and so re-engage with safety and a timeline that has a past, a present and a future,” he says.

A helpful way of framing the next few months is to think of it as a transition period, says Hannah Kinsey, head of training and service design at mental health charity Young Minds. For example, think of all the things schools do for primary-secondary transition.

“People are quite well versed in putting in place the support structures around those sorts of [stressful] transitions, but what young people are living with at the moment is a year-long transition period of uncertainty, not knowing what is going to come next,” she says. Creating a sense of consistency and connection, she explains, is vital and can provide “an anchor in the storm”.

This, Kinsey says, could come in the form of teachers and other members of staff providing “daily check-ins” for students, particularly vulnerable ones.

“It’s about trying to make sure that you’ve got those touch points with them, having the same people looking out for them, because we know what is really important for young people is knowing that somebody is holding them in mind,” she says. “It’s about maximising that as much as possible. It could literally be as much as a tiny check-in, just to say, ‘I’ve been thinking about you. I hope it’s going OK.’ It doesn’t have to be a whole lesson.”

Talking about ideas around resilience and self-care is important, too, she says - and staff should take “the foot off the pedal a bit” with the academic side to allow this to happen.

So there are things that a school can try to do in the here-and-now, but how long after the pandemic has waned can the impact of uncertainty and anxiety continue?

Freeston says that as the Covid uncertainty reduces and things become more predictable, many people will naturally recover, and may even have gained resilience in the process. But he adds that long-term mental health problems can begin in stressful life events.

“So, with more people exposed to more stress and prolonged stress, there may be more people than usual who may develop mental health problems,” he says.

Like academic recovery, it’s clear that mental wellbeing recovery will be a long-term project with no short-term fixes.

Irena Barker is a freelance journalist

This article originally appeared in the 26 March 2021 issue