Teachers fear it will take pupils 18 months to catch up

The learning gap created by the pandemic will take more than 18 months to close, teachers have warned.
 
State school teachers were far more likely to offer a gloomy forecast of how long it would take pupils to catch up compared to teachers in private schools, according to a survey of 4,690 teachers for EdTech event, Bett.
 
The survey - carried out by Teacher Tapp - showed that 14 per cent of teachers in private primary schools and 23 per cent of private secondary teachers had not seen a learning gap created by the pandemic.
 
A majority of private secondary school teachers thought that their gap would be closed within 6 months.
 
Just three per cent of teachers in state schools did not think there was a learning gap thanks to Covid19 compared to 19 per cent of private school teachers who thought there was no gap.
 
Some 36 per cent of primary teachers in state schools thought the learning gap would take 18 months or more, while 32 per cent of secondary state school teachers thought the same.
 
Overall, classroom teachers were slightly more pessimistic about how long it would take to close the learning gap than headteachers or members of the senior leadership teams (SLT).
 
Some 32 per cent of teachers at the coalface thought it would take 18 months or more, compared with 31 per cent of SLT and 28 per cent of heads.
 
When analysed by subject, language teachers and Key Stage 2 primary teachers were the most pessimistic, with 34 per cent warning it would take more than 18 months to catch up students. 
 
Some 28 per cent of maths specialist teachers thought it would be more than 18 months, while the figures were nearly the same for English teachers (27 per cent) and humanities (27 per cent) while nearly a third of science teachers - 31 per cent - also warned of the longest time delay.
 
For teachers of early years and Key Stage one in primary, a third warned it would take more than 18 months while 30 per cent of PE teachers and 24 per cent of art and design and technology teachers thought the same.