The picture says it all. The government is currently exploring ways to help children make up for the learning loss suffered during the coronavirus pandemic and most of them involve more sitting-down-and-learning time.

Ideas currently being explored include:

– one-to-one tuition;
– summer school;
– repeating the school year;
– extending the school day or term.

Yes, tuition helps children catch up. Yes, small group summer schools help children catch up. But I’m going to say something controversial here. I don’t believe the children need to catch up. I believe we need to adjust our ideas about where the children should be.

The government is INCREDIBLY prescriptive about what children should be able to do in each year group. Write sentences in Year 1; know what a pronoun is in Year 3; recall all times tables up to 12 x 12 in Year 4; build a nuclear power station in Year 5. Don’t panic; that last one’s a joke!

This one-size-fits-all approach is not going to suit the post-pandemic classroom at all. Let’s abandon our ideas about who should know what and when and meet our children’s learning needs by seeing them as the unique individuals they are.

Does it matter if your Reception child cannot ‘use phonic knowledge to decode regular words & read aloud accurately’. Nope. Not a bit. They’ll get there.

Let’s stop saying SHOULD and recognise that children AND parents have been through a horribly stressful time and that when this is over time and space will be needed for rebalancing. I’m not exaggerating when I say that more than anything else, children will need to learn to run around and play with others in big groups in an unregimented way. They need to explore the outdoor world. Running and playing literally builds synapses in the brain so this will benefit the children in their learning.

Wellbeing should be our focus over the coming months. Children should be encouraged to talk about how they feel about lockdown and to learn ways to manage stress and difficult emotions. Forget academic targets: our only target should be to help our children process what they have been through and look forward to a future free of anxiety.

So yes, it’s great the the government is looking to fund initiatives to help children but let’s stop talking about ‘catching up’ and start thinking of the post-pandemic period as a chance to help our children relaunch themselves into a world full of adventure, fun and discovery.

More information about the government’s plans can be found here on the BBC website.