Recommendation 1

There is no doubt that school closures have had a devasting effect on children’s education. One 2020 study found that children locked down at home in the UK spent an average of only 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork, and one fifth of pupils did no schoolwork at home, or less than one hour a day. Primary-aged pupils had lost 0.9 months learning in reading and 2.2 months in mathematics by the summer of 2020/21, and secondary-aged pupils had experienced a learning loss of around 1.2 months in reading. School closures have also impacted on children’s mental health, with 1 in 6 children having a probable mental health condition in 2020, up from 1 in 9 in 2017. We believe that school closures have been nothing short of a national disaster for children.