Learning from the last four years: Tracking the impact of KS1 school closures on pupils’ attainment and social skills
Wednesday 11 December 2024
This blog post was first published in Schools Week on Monday 9 December 2024.
Beginning in 2020, NFER set out to understand the long-term impact of Covid-19 school closures on pupils in over 168 primary schools in England. The four-year project, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), followed two cohorts of children, starting when they were in Year 1 and Year 2, and tracking their reading, maths and social skills across their time at primary school. Now in 2024, the project has come to an end with the pupils in Year 4 and Year 5 respectively. We look back to assess what we have learned.
Pupils’ attainment in reading and maths
To understand how pupils’ learning has been affected since 2020, each year their performance on NFER reading and maths assessments has been compared with pre-pandemic data to estimate the *Covid-19 gap. Although both Year 1 and Year 2 pupils in our study were initially behind their pre-pandemic peers in 2020-2021, as Year 4 and 5 pupils in 2023-2024, they had closed the Covid-19 gap and, in some cases, scored even higher than pupils pre-pandemic.
Since it began, the study placed a spotlight on understanding the impact of school closures for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds. Each year, we compared the performance of pupils eligible for free school meals with their non-eligible peers to estimate the **disadvantage gap. While disadvantaged pupils have improved in both subjects, this has only been at a similar rate to their peers. This means the disadvantage gap for both cohorts has remained persistently wide, now at around six-seven months’ progress in 2024. To address this, many schools reported providing targeted support to aid the recovery of disadvantaged pupils in 2023 (74 per cent) and 2024 (64 per cent).
Throughout the study, we have been concerned about the proportion of children considered to be ‘low-attaining’ - these are pupils who did not score enough marks on each paper to be awarded a standardised score. At the beginning of the study, we found significantly higher percentages of low-attaining pupils in both cohorts and subjects, in some cases up to three times higher than pre-pandemic figures (1-2 per cent of pupils). While this proportion reduced towards the end of the study for maths (Figure X), for reading (Figure Y) the proportion was more worrying throughout. We also found increasing numbers of pupils who were withdrawn from the assessments by their teachers, most of whom were low-attaining in previous years. Teachers may have decided not to include these pupils in an optional assessment they may have found difficult. This may be hiding the real proportion of low-attaining pupils because they were not assessed.
Figure X - A graph showing the proportion of low attaining pupils in maths across the project.
Figure Y - A graph showing the proportion of low attaining pupils in reading across the project.
The wider impact of the pandemic on schools
To understand the wider impact of the pandemic, our project gathered further information through a school survey (completed by school leaders) and measurements of pupils’ social skills (completed by class teachers).</>
At the beginning of the study, most schools reported pandemic-related disruption. This decreased by 2022 and, in 2023 and 2024, pupil behaviour or wellbeing was the greatest cause of disruption reported by schools. Around two-thirds of schools reported using small-group wellbeing sessions to support pupils across 2022-2024. However, in 2024, three-quarters of schools also reported difficulties obtaining external support and increased staff workload related to pupils’ wellbeing. While schools found it necessary to provide this support, social skills assessed by class teachers indicated pupils were broadly in line with age-related expectations.
Across the study, small-group work was the most common strategy implemented by schools to aid pupils’ maths and reading recovery, alongside staff redeployment and one-to-one catch-up support. By 2024, although recovery practices had reduced, they were still reported by around half of participating schools.
What next?
Together with the work of schools, this unique and long-running project has produced invaluable insights into the journey of pupils who were in the earliest stages of primary school when the pandemic hit. Although the attainment of most pupils in our study has shown a positive recovery across the last four years, there remain persistently wide gaps between them and their low-attaining and disadvantaged peers. For teachers and senior leaders, these findings may highlight areas where they may usefully target support. Yet, to ensure recovery work in the long-term, it is essential policy makers provide schools with adequate funding. While our study followed two year groups, schools might also be concerned about other groups of pupils or year groups not covered by our study who may have been impacted by the pandemic in different ways. As Tim Oates warns [1], the challenges for longer-term support may come in waves.
Footnotes
* Covid-19 gap: The difference between the mean scores of pupils in the relevant academic year and those of pre-pandemic samples
** Disadvantage gap: The difference between the mean scores of pupils eligible for free school meals and those of their peers not eligible for free school meals.