Since 20th March 2020, almost all school-aged children across the UK have been unable to attend school due to the Coronavirus pandemic. Exceptions are small numbers of vulnerable children and those whose parents are key workers. Schools have pivoted to remote delivery of learning using a variety of online and offline resources.
This report adds to a growing literature on how long-term school absence affects pupils and their families, and how remote learning might act to mitigate some of its effects.
Key Findings:
- Almost all pupils received some remote learning tasks from their teachers. However, almost half of exam-year pupils in Years 11 and 13 were not provided with work by their school.
- Just over half of all pupils taught remotely did not usually have any online lessons, defined as live or real-time lessons. Offline provision, such as worksheets or recorded video, was much more common than ‘live’ online lessons.
- Secondary and post-secondary pupils were slightly more likely than primary pupils to have online lessons. However, across all three phases, pupils had access to fewer online than offline lessons.
- Most pupils spent less than three hours per day on remote learning activities. Pupils from higher-income households, and whose parents had higher levels of education, spent the most time on school work at home, particularly at secondary level.
- In contrast, parents from the lowest-income households spent the most amount of time supporting their child with schoolwork. Parental education was largely unrelated to the amount of time parents spent helping with their child’s school work. Parents of primary school children spent more time providing support than parents of secondary school children.
- At least five percent of pupils live with an adult who is at very high risk (clinically extremely vulnerable) of serious illness related to COVID-19. A further 19 percent live with an adult who is at high risk (clinically vulnerable). These estimates exclude any non-responding adults or any pupils who might themselves be at increased risk, meaning the true percentages are likely to be higher.
- Pupils from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) background (defined as those with at least one BAME parent) and those whose households fall into the lowest income quartile are significantly more likely to live with an at-risk adult.
Recommendations
- We recommend that Government weights catch-up funding towards schools in disadvantaged areas, using the proportion of Pupil Premium pupils in the funding distribution model.
- It is also concerning that almost half of pupils in Years 11 and 13 were not being assigned any school work in April 2020. This is understandably related to the cancellation of their exams. However, it means that, come September, many of these pupils will not have engaged with education for up to six months. A return to education may therefore prove challenging for many, especially if it is in a new educational setting. At present, catch-up funding in England is available only to primary and secondary schools.
- We recommend that Government consider what additional support could be made available for Year 11 students as they enter Key Stage 5 or Further Education.
- At least a quarter of all pupils (more in low income and BAME households) live with an adult at high or very high risk of serious illness related to COVID-19. Other pupils may also themselves have underlying conditions that put them at increased risk. The Government intends that school attendance will again be mandatory from September, and that fines for non-attendance will be reintroduced.
- We recommend that the Government support schools in adopting a flexible approach to children from high risk and very high risk households.
- This could include delaying the enforcement of fines until community infection rates are lower, identifying heightened safety measures, and schools providing remote or hybrid learning where circumstances mean a physical return to school is not advisable.