Date: 11/02/21
By Alan Hardie, CEO at NCEAT.

During the last week, we’ve had plenty of headlines about the need for our children to ‘catch up’ with their ‘lost education’. It’s very easy for politicians to get a headline with what is seen as an easy solution, such as longer school days or shorter holidays. Suggestions like these can be seen as common sense and a good remedy to the problems created by the partial closure of schools during the pandemic.

However, if I’ve learned one thing in my time as a school leader, it is that the biggest waste of time and resources is delivering a solution without a proper understanding of what the actual problem is. In business, this might be described as a ‘root cause analysis’.

It’s very easy for a government to impose a national strategy for improving education or healthcare, but all too often this is based on a particular political or populist view on what is seen as the obvious solution to a problem. Unfortunately many such ‘solutions’ are based on a flawed understanding of what the problem actually is, nor do they consider the unintended impacts of their ‘solution’.

I’ve said in previous blogs that while I am naturally concerned about the impact of the pandemic on our children, I am much more hopeful than many politicians that this can be overcome. This is largely because I know that children are much more resilient than they are often given credit for and also because I know that many of our pupils have worked very hard during lockdown and haven’t spent a year with no learning. Teachers are also very skilled in identifying gaps in learning and can help our pupils bridge the gaps, so that they get to where they need to be.

In my humble opinion, what politicians need to focus on firstly is giving schools the additional resources, such as funding for more teachers, needed to help the pupils who have found it most difficult to engage with remote learning. This would allow schools to increase the strategies we know work best with their own pupils, such as one-to-one or small group tutoring. This will help schools tackle the biggest impact of the pandemic, which is the uneven impact on learning between pupils.

Secondly, the government needs to hold an urgent review of the way that pupils are assessed for exam grades. The last year has demonstrated that placing all of the emphasis on a set of exams at the end of a course is too open to disruption, which is a disaster when there is no ‘plan B’. If effective teacher assessment systems are put in place, coursework reintroduced and more frequent chances to take shorter exams during the course are brought in, there would be many benefits. Firstly it would avoid the ‘all eggs in one basket’ situation we currently have, but more importantly it would benefit the mental health of our pupils by ending the intense weeks of stress with two or more exams per day.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there is a need to recognise that it isn’t just English and Maths that our pupils need to ‘catch up’ with. Of course these are important, but so are the soft skills that pupils learn through attending school: teamwork, listening to other points of view, self-discipline, the chance to discuss their ideas with their classmates, learning new skills etc. This can’t be underestimated. Being introduced to athletics at school improved my wellbeing and gave me opportunities I would almost certainly never would have had otherwise. We must not underestimate the social aspects of learning and recognise that this isn’t just through lessons but also the extracurricular and enrichment activities on offer.

Those who propose extending the school day and term time need to recognise that ‘catching up’ isn’t just about more lessons, it’s also about the social learning opportunities that pupils have missed during lockdown. They also need to remember that schools already offer a great deal outside of normal school hours, so a key part of any ‘catch up’ solution has been funding to invest in more sports, drama, arts, music, and etc. rather than just more lessons.

Let’s hope that our Government takes the time to fully understand the problem before deciding on the solution to ‘catch up’.