Coronavirus: One in five children have done almost no schoolwork during lockdown
‘Everyone is losing out in this generation, some much more than others,’ says expert
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Your support makes all the difference.More than two million children in the UK have done almost no schoolwork at home during the coronavirus lockdown, according to researchers.
The report by the UCL Institute of Education found one in five pupils have spent less than an hour a day on study since March.
Only 17 per cent of children put in more than four hours of schoolwork a day, it is claimed.
On average, pupils locked down at home in the UK spent an average of 2.5 hours on education, the report concluded.
The figure is less than half that found by previous research – implying that “learning losses are much greater than feared”.
“Most homework consisted of assignments, worksheets and watching videos,” the UCL study found. “On average children were given two such pieces of homework a day.”
However the amount of schoolwork varied widely by region, type of school and category of pupil.
The survey, which is based on the UK Household Longitudinal Study, found that 71 per cent of state school children received less than one daily online lesson.
Meanwhile nearly a third (31 per cent) of private schools provided four or more online lessons daily, compared with just 6 per cent of state schools.
Offline schoolwork was lowest in the northeast of England, where the proportion receiving four or more daily pieces of work was 9 per cent, compared with the UK average of 20 per cent.
Children who are eligible for free school meals (FSMs) were additionally disadvantaged during lockdown, researchers concluded, with one in five having no access to a computer at home, compared to 7 per cent for other children.
Only 11 per cent of children in receipt of FSMs spent more than four hours a day on schoolwork, compared to nearly a fifth (19 per cent) of pupils who are not eligible for free school meals.
Professor Francis Green, the lead author of the study, said the findings paint a “gloomy picture” of missed schooling and low take-up of academic work at home.
He said: “The closure of schools, and their only-partial re-opening, constitute a potential threat to the educational development of a generation of children.
“Everyone is losing out in this generation, some much more than others. Better home schoolwork provision, and better still an early safe return to school for as many as possible, should now become a top priority for government.”
Additional reporting by Press Association
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