Impact of school closures in Key Stage 1 on attainment and social skills of pupils in Year 4 and Year 5 in academic year 2023/2024
07 October 2024
This longitudinal study follows a group of the youngest school-aged children during and since the Covid-19 pandemic to understand the long-term impact of Covid-19 related disruption to schools on pupils’ attainment and social skills. This report represents the findings from the fourth year of the study, with pupils in this year’s study in Years 4 and 5 (in 2023/24).
The three previous reports are linked below:
The research has been conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), published and funded by the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF).
Key Findings
- Overall, the Covid-19 gap appears to have closed, on average, in both reading and mathematics for the Year 4 and Year 5 pupils in our study.
- Tracking the same group of pupils each year in the study shows the Covid-gap has reduced across the length of the study from spring 2021 to spring 2024 for both year groups and subjects.
- However, the disadvantage gap remains wide. For both reading and maths, disadvantaged pupils in Year 4 were on average seven months behind their non-disadvantaged peers. Disadvantaged pupils in Year 5 were, on average, 6 and 7 months behind their peers for reading and mathematics, respectively.
- Whilst for Year 4 pupils, the disadvantage gaps have reduced slightly since spring 2021, the gaps have remained stubborn for the Year 5 pupils, and indeed remain wider than those reported elsewhere before the pandemic.
- There also remained a notable proportion of very low attaining pupils in Year 5 reading this year, as well as a proportion of pupils who were highlighted as unable to access the curriculum.
- The most common challenges reported by schools now relate to the longer-term fall out of the Covid pandemic including pupil wellbeing/behaviour, staff workload relating to pupil wellbeing/behaviour, difficulties obtaining external support for pupils, and wider concerns about pupil absence.
- Schools continue to prioritise recovery support for low attaining pupils, and for disadvantaged pupils (although to a slightly lesser extent than low attainers and than in previous years of our study). They are also prioritising wellbeing support.
- Schools strategies to support pupils’ learning with small group work, staff redeployment, and one-to-one catch up appear to be paying off. However, given the stubborn disadvantage gap, and that there remain some very low attainers, more targeted support is needed for schools to continue to support these groups of pupils.