Commenting on a new report by the National Foundation for
Educational Research (NFER), looking at how primary school
pupils’ progress was affected by Covid partial school closures,
which finds that the youngest primary school pupils’ reading
development was most affected by Covid shutdowns, Paul Whiteman,
general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:
“This report shows the scale of the challenge in helping children
recover lost learning during the pandemic. Children in the first
few years of school have undoubtedly been hit particularly hard
as many had their pre-school years severely disrupted. Those
years are absolutely vital when it comes to putting in place the
building blocks for early reading.
“Schools have already been working incredibly hard to support
those pupils who have been negatively affected by lockdowns and
the good news is that we know good recovery progress is being
made. Educators know what they are doing, and it is important
that schools are allowed to focus on the strategies and
programmes they know work best for the children in their schools.
“However, schools are still suffering from Covid disruption, with
incredibly high levels of Covid-related absence over the winter
for both pupils and staff. That has impeded the ability of
schools to concentrate on the excellent recovery work they are
doing. We can only hope that things will continue to improve next
term – distractions must be kept to a minimum. Government must be
prepared to give schools additional resources where they are
needed.”
