The most disadvantaged students have fallen further behind their peers following the disruption to schooling in 2020
A study by NFER (National Foundation for Educational Research) surveying almost 3,000 school leaders and teachers across mainstream primary and secondary schools in England, highlights the challenges schools face going back to school in September following the disruption caused by COVID-19.
The report highlights that pupils from the most deprived backgrounds will be further behind than less disadvantaged pupils. Teachers from the most deprived schools report over 3 times more than the least deprived schools that their students are 4 months or more behind their curriculum. Whilst the average estimate for how far students are behind their curriculum is 3 months. This is also as almost all teachers estimate that students are behind on their curriculum learning.
As highlighted in a Guardian article, 61% of teachers reported that the gap between disadvantaged students and their peers has widened. The overall gap between the most disadvantaged pupils and their peers had grown by 46% over the past year.
This is in part due to over a quarter of pupils (28%) having limited access to IT at home, so therefore not being able to participate in online learning like the most privileged students could. As well as this, many schools weren’t able to provide all their staff with IT equipment. Over one third of teachers had to provide their own laptop or computer while three-fifths supplied their own camera/video equipment or had no equipment of this sort at all.
In addition to this, teachers expect that 44% of their students need intensive catch-up support, and these estimates are much higher at deprived schools and schools with higher proportions of students from BAME backgrounds.
Overall, the closure of schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the most disadvantaged pupils to fall further behind. This as more affluent pupils benefit from having more resources at home such as their own laptop, and possible access to help from parents or tutors.