A report from the education watchdog warns some young children have forgotten how to use a knife and fork or have regressed back to nappies.
Written content by Sean Coughlan for BBC
Older children have lost their “stamina” for reading, say inspectors.
The Department for Education says it shows the need to keep schools open.
Divided experiences
Ofsted has examined the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children, based on visits to 900 schools and early years providers this autumn – and found that it has been a very divided experience.
The chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, says there are three “broad groups” to describe what has happened:
- The “hardest-hit” group of young children have suffered from time out of school, going backwards on words and numbers and with “regression back into nappies among potty-trained children” or losing “basic skills” such as using a knife and fork.
- The majority of children in the middle “have slipped back in their learning to varying degrees since schools were closed to most children and movement restricted” and the report says: “Lost learning is unarguable, but it is hard to assess.”
- There are also children who found the lockdown a positive experience – these children, from supportive but not necessarily well off backgrounds, might have benefited from a greater sense of togetherness with parents and “quality time” as a family
But Ms Spielman says this did not divide along the lines of advantage and deprivation, but instead factors such as whether parents were able to spend time with children and families having what she described as “good support structures”.
Among older children, Ofsted warns of a loss of concentration among those returning to school and that “online squabbles” that started on social media during the lockdown are now “being played out in the classroom”. Read more from BBC.
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