Learning Prospects Damaged for Children Who Started School During Lockdown: Study

Lockdown-induced school closures will “significantly damage” the educational prospects of children who started school during the COVID-19 period, academics have warned. The study funded by the Nuffield Foundation and published on Wednesday says the “educational damage” wrought by mass school closures in England will have an impact on children “well into the 2030s,” with generations set for the biggest declines in GCSE test results “for at least two decades.” “Covid induced learning losses and declines in socio-emotional skills will significantly damage the education prospects of 5-year-olds at the time of Covid school closures, with boys 4.4 percentage points less likely to achieve 5 good GCSEs and girls 4.8 percentage points less likely to do so,” academics at the universities of Exeter and Strathclyde and the London School of Economics found....