Education has taken a massive hit over the last year due to the Covid pandemic. Schools have had to shut and pupils have had to get used to remote learning. Although the schools are now open again, they are still having to stay within their bubbles and learning is somewhat different to what it used to be.
Many children have missed out on a lot of their education and although during the second and third lockdown, more work was sent home, not all pupils had the help or resources to be able to complete it. Reception and year one children seem to have been hit particularly hard as those years are very important as they learn of lot of the basics about reading and writing. Having missed huge chunks of the year, they are now finding themselves in the following year having not learn what they needed to allow them to progress.
The government have assured parents and teachers that they are going to offer additional support for those children that need it but in what form, we still do not know yet.
Online learning and remote learning has been in place for a little while now and was originally intended for those children that may have been off ill but who were able to continue to do some work from home. These systems were not being used by whole schools previously so it has taken some time to ensure that they are set up and working correctly. With the UK coming out of lockdown, everyone is hoping that we will not have to go back in to one, but if we do the country is now set up to cope better with online learning. It may be that some of the remote learning is here to stay and may be used for other purposes.
Although children may well of fell behind, there are very mixed opinions as to whether children should be made to try and catch up by doing additional lessons, longer school days or holiday schools. Children have not only missed out on their education but there has also been a massive impact on their social wellbeing and many parents think that this may be more important and therefore additional schooling will only make this worse. Children are learning social skills again now they are back at school and hopefully as bubbles become a thing of the past, children will again be able to mix with lots of different people and learn the all important life skills they need to.