What is this educational gap that they keep talking about? – Elizabeth Parker.
As we sit here at the beginning of a new academic year, thinking about whether we have organised all of the necessary uniforms and equipment, it is worth checking on some of the basics to school life. Are the shoes polish-able? What are the haircut requirements? What food will they decide they don’t like this year? Will they still all be friends after the holidays? Will they make new friends? I find myself considering the so-called educational gap that the pandemic has left our children with and, more importantly, how we can work together to ensure the best educational future for our young people; no matter what their age or stage in education.
I can almost hear you asking what qualifies me to write and consider this. I have worked in education for over twenty years, latterly working with the transition of students from primary to secondary school. I am a mother with a child in Year 9 (aged 13) at secondary school and a younger child in Year 4 (aged 8) at primary school. So I find myself in a very privileged position where I can make observations and suggestions of how we can help and support our future generations.
We all have the responsibility to help ensure that the two years we found ourselves living in an altered reality (and for many of us, a living hell) don’t have a lasting impact. Let us not forget our young people are the future: the society and the decision makers of tomorrow.
So let’s consider the why, when, what and how? The pandemic put us in a situation where we were not living our normal lives. We had to stay at home. Stay two metres away from everyone. Wear masks and repeatedly be told how important it was for the safety of everyone to follow all of the guidelines. I don’t know about your children but a walk in the woods with my two will stay in my memory forever. The boys behaved like the other people were something to be scared of. In truth it reminded me of a scene from the Walking Dead and that normal people who were several metres away had become something to be feared.
School and work was something that was done at home. Everyone concerned had to find new ways to exist, function and to try and keep society working. Many of us found a way to juggle working, home-schooling, worrying about finances and our loved ones. Many of us will have striking memories of situations when we tried to protect our young people; mine is of sitting in the supermarket car park crying down the phone to my own dad because the food shelves were empty and you couldn’t get tinned spaghetti bolognese for love nor money! One of my son’s food fads!
However, the young people who we tried so hard to protect were there like living sponges; observing and dealing with the changes, each in their own way. And just like the grown-ups they also have their memories and now we expect them, need them, to change to a reality that allows them to make progress and fill the educational gaps.
So, what are the gaps? The gaps have occurred for a multitude of reasons and the different experiences that we all had. No two families will have had the same experience and therefore no two children will have had the same educational experience. So their responses to being at school are different. Young people’s viewpoint seems to be that although they knew they now had to be at school it just gets in the way. When asked to expand they simply said we did our learning in the morning and then had the rest of the day to do what they wanted to do and now they have to be at school for the whole day. They were frustrated that the school day now got in the way of what they actually wanted to do, “…and then you also ask me to do homework!”
Within this position of difference it also means that our young people have learnt different things. Now this is not a criticism of what you did, far from it. In fact hats off to you all and thank you for what you have done. I am a trained teacher and my own family’s experience was challenging, especially with one of my children. Then there is our own level of understanding: What was your least favourite subject? What is the peice homework that your child struggles with that you either say “ask your dad” or “Have you Googled it?” This is a glimpse of where the gaps and knowledge levels have come from?
So illustrating the ‘Why’ has hopefully shown how many factors have influenced the situation our youngsters are currently in. The ‘When’ is now. So what can we do?
We need to re-educate our youngsters on the importance of face to face education. Not just in response to them wanting to be at home to complete their own activities which they consider to be more fun. We need to re-educate them and ourselves in the importance of attending school when they are feeling ill. Most illnesses can be dealt with by the miracle of Calpol. With regards to Covid it is no longer an expectation to self isolate. We need to go into the new school year with the view of our young people achieving 98% attendance or above. Let’s all be the proud owners of attendance certificates for the new academic year!
Schools clearly know what they are doing but do we as parents or guardians fully understand what the school reports actually mean? Primary school terminology got me very stumped: “At expected”, “working towards expected”, do we know what that even means? I didn’t know what it meant in specific relation to my own child so I asked their teacher and a whole wealth of information came my way. The information from the class teacher was not just helpful in my understanding of what my own child was finding difficult but also they told me what they were planning to do next year. I came away feeling informed and reassured that we were all working together.
So now we can talk about the ‘How’. I personally made the decision that I wanted to work with my child over the holidays so I went to Amazon… (other sources of educational support resources are available!) What I found was a wealth of books: CGP Daily practice books for each term, Minecraft English and Maths books for specific age ranges and National Geographic Awesome English and maths books, again for specific age ranges. Then we devised a reward system together. I used their old reading record book as it had grids in it. I then recorded what they had completed and I gave them lots of stickers… they particularly love shiny stars. When they have completed five grids I would give them £1. While my youngest does this my oldest child reads. I decided that they would both be off the electronics at the same time or it wouldn’t work and that they would both receive the same reward.
I have found secondary school reporting even more challenging. I thought this would be easier working in the system but I have found that no two schools report or work in the same way. But through conversations with the teaching staff and the pastoral team I have found how I can support my child.
Secondary school now reports on a 1-9 system with 4 or 5 being a pass and 9 being the equivalent of A or A*. The conversations with your child’s teachers are paramount to understanding what your young person has the potential to achieve. We are not all designed to be brain surgeons, nor are we all interested in being one. Talk to your young person’s teachers and they will advise you on the gaps or areas to be worked on. The resources I have already mentioned are available for all areas of education. Secondary school children will need resources specific to the subject, but if the difficulties and gaps are in English and/or Maths focus on those first as they underpin everything.
Now let’s talk about what for some is a dirty word… homework! Homework is designed to consolidate what is learnt in the classroom. In plain-speak, your young person learns a new concept or idea in the classroom with the support of the teaching staff and classmates, but how can we know if they have fully understood it? This comes when they apply their new knowledge in a different situation; such as homework. Homework is also used to embed the new learning. I am amazed by all of the electronic programs such as Tassomai, not the coffee!, TT rock stars and Blooket, amongst others. These can be bought by parents or guardians, but check with either your young person or school as schools are making huge investments into these learning platforms. The reason is that many of them will give immediate feedback and have logarithms that mean it will repeat the questions your child gets wrong and then bring back the questions or areas that they are able to complete later on, just to make sure that it is embedded.
We all have our part to play in supporting the future of our young people, so grab a notebook and make a commitment to how you can support your young person. What can you fit into what already is a busy schedule? It could be as simple as helping them to improve their attendance or clearing a space on the dining room table so they can do their homework while you are making dinner or catching up on your own emails. Remember every little bit helps to fill in those gaps for all of our futures!