Almost half of pupils unable to catch-up on lost learning

Over three quarters (80%) of young people believe their academic progress has suffered and half say they are now less motivated to study and learn as a result of the pandemic. This is according to the COVID Social Mobility & Opportunities (COSMO) study, led jointly by the UCL Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities, the UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies and the Sutton Trust.

Thirty-seven per cent of those at state schools feel they have fallen behind their classmates – more than double the figure for independent school students (15%).

As a result of substantial inequalities between schools in remote learning during lockdowns, the study examined opportunities for catch-up learning. Almost half of young people have accessed no catch-up learning at all and a large majority have not accessed tutoring. The most available option – extra online classes – was offered to just half of the study’s participants and taken up by less than a third.  When asked whether they have been able to catch up with learning lost during the pandemic, 45% of students disagree while only 36% agree. Almost half (46%) of students at comprehensive schools say they have not been able to catch up with learning, a significantly higher proportion than those at independent schools (27%).

Despite extra tutoring being a core element of the government’s catch-up strategy, independent school students are more likely to have been offered this than those at comprehensive schools (52% vs 41%), and are more likely to have taken part in additional online classes. However, when extra tutoring was offered to those at comprehensives, they were more likely to take this up than their independent school counterparts. Better off families were also more likely to pay for private tutoring when schools re-opened in 2021, with 19% of parents with a child in the least deprived fifth of state comprehensive schools doing so, compared to 4% for those from the most deprived.

The researchers say that support offered for catch-up across all school years in England is three times lower per person than funding provided for the US rescue plan for schools (currently totalling around £4.9 billion compared with a $122 billion rescue plan in the US, the equivalent of about £15.5 billion in England adjusting for population size).

The findings show the pandemic has had a major impact on young people’s future plans. Of those who had previously made plans, almost two thirds (64%) say their education plans have changed because of the pandemic and three in five (60%) have changed their future career plans. Girls, young people from disadvantaged family backgrounds, and those attending state comprehensive schools were more likely than their counterparts to have changed their plans. Young people who had ‘long COVID’ or ill health, who were asked to shield or who experienced economic hardships were also much more likely to have done so.