Commenting on the Chief Inspector’s annual report, Geoff
Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said:
“The Chief Inspector’s bleak report provides yet more evidence of
the huge impact of the pandemic on the education and wellbeing of
children and young people. She finds that the challenges of the
pandemic were so great that nearly all children fell behind in
their education despite the best efforts of teachers, parents,
carers and social workers. The loss of education and activities
led to some children developing physical and mental health
problems, and created additional barriers for children with
special educational needs.
“Unfortunately, the government’s response to this crisis has been
wholly inadequate. Its recovery plan for education is not
sufficiently resourced and is predicated largely on a series of
routes for delivering one-to-one and small group tuition which
are overly complicated and bureaucratic. It would be far simpler
and more effective to provide the funding directly to schools and
colleges to deliver support as needed. It is not too late to do
this and we call upon ministers once again to provide a recovery
plan of the scale and ambition required.
“We would also emphasise that disruption caused by the pandemic
is far from being over, and that the first step to recovery must
be to establish continuity of learning. The government must
provide more public health support to schools and colleges in
terms of testing and improved ventilation, and Ofsted itself must
do more to recognise that inspections at this time are extremely
problematic. We have asked the inspectorate to allow inspections
to be deferred upon request to a later date, and while it has
slightly softened its criteria for deferrals, it has not gone far
enough in this respect.”
