‘I wanted to play and I couldn’t’: Children reflect on the year since England’s first lockdown

“I’m quite a sociable person. I found it really hard not being able to leave the house,” India Grainger tells The Independent.

The 11-year-old, like millions of others, has spent months of her childhood away from school, friends and usual hobbies since England first went into lockdown one year ago. “The most active thing I could do was take my dogs out,” she says.

The Year 6 pupil is currently self-isolating for the second time this academic year, meaning even more time at home after two national lockdowns that kept most children out of school.

Experts have raised concerns over lost learning and children’s wellbeing after coronavirus caused massive upheaval in key stages of their lives and development.

The disruption has been “hard”, India says. “You might be back in school and then you’re thinking the whole time, ‘Will they announce another lockdown? Will someone in our year get Covid? Will we have to start self-isolating again?’”

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As well as facing coronavirus restrictions over the past year on socialising, most children stopped going into school during lockdowns last spring and at the start of this year.

Only vulnerable children and the offspring of key workers could attend between last March and May – followed by limited attendance in the summer term – and January and March this year.

It is plain from what children say that the last year has been difficult: missing their friends, seeing plans scuppered and the trials of learning from home are universal themes.

Eight-year-old Zoe Norman, of London, says: “I wanted to see [my friends] in person, and it was hard because I wanted to play, and have play-dates, and I couldn't. We couldn't go on a few things that we planned with our friends – we were planning camping. Everyone wants to go to the beach.”

Zoe's brother Samuel, 11, tells The Independent: “You're always inside, on a device, doing your home learning, or just chatting with friends when it's better to see them face-to-face. You do miss your friends, but also school. It's just not as easy to learn when you're at home, there's lots of distractions.”

One compensation of Zoom lessons, Samuel says, was that “the days were a bit shorter” because “you didn't have to wait for everyone else to finish the work”.

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The siblings agree, though, that spending more time together as a family, including with their new dog Millie, had been a positive experience.

Ethan Taylor, also 11, says that in a classroom pupils can get more done and “get into the working environment”, interacting more easily with teachers and other pupils. “Online lessons are way different to normal ones because you do different amounts of work. You do whatever is set on there, and it's not much. Sometimes it wouldn't work.”

Ethan, whose parents are key workers, adds that while he was able to talk to friends over the phone while locked down, he is glad to be back in school full-time.

Older children have also struggled.

“Remote learning just doesn’t have the same effect as in-person teaching,” A-Level student Shai Rutherford tells The Independent. “It has almost felt as if we have been stuck in a sort of never-ending cycle of assignments and revision.”

The greatest difficulty has been “getting the motivation to do work and meet deadlines”, the 17-year-old says. “It’s difficult to complete things when you have no real end goal.”

A-levels have been cancelled two years running, and replaced by teacher assessments.

For Dinah Mandell, 17, who is deaf, learning at home posed an extra challenge. “This year has been really difficult for all students, but particularly those with hearing loss,” the north Londoner tells The Independent.

“Online learning is difficult for some deaf people if video calls don’t have subtitles, and if the student can’t see the teacher’s face or have access to a British Sign Language interpreter.”

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Luke Ryder, from Liverpool, says he struggled to stay motivated while at home while surrounded by distractions, such as his phone and music. The 16-year-old adds: “It has been quite difficult not seeing each other and being stuck at home all year.”

For others, online learning and being able to study at home has been a positive experience despite the isolation.

“I would say being off for that time and remote learning has really helped with my mental health, just because it was a lot more relaxed,” Lydia Mason, also at St Margaret’s Church of England Academy in Liverpool, tells The Independent.

Mornings were less busy, meaning she could “get up and go quite slowly” before logging on. “But then again, it was hard because I did miss that face-to-face contact,” the 17-year-old adds.

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Dr Karen Street, of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) tells The Independent the college has seen children, particularly teenagers, lose motivation over the last year. Low mood and “big increases in depression” have also been apparent, she adds.

Data published by NHS Digital last October showed a 50-per-cent rise in mental health disorders among young people compared to the year before.

And as all children went back to school in March after most had been learning online for two months, a “huge rise in anxiety” was noted, says Dr Street.

The college’s mental health lead puts this down to prolonged isolation, particularly for children left at home while parents continued going to work.

“Teenage years in particular are a period of time in life when you are supposed to be your most sociable,” she says, adding that social contact is essential “to develop the people they are going to become”.

Catherine Roche from Place2Be, a children’s mental health charity, tells The Independent that “from our work in schools, increase in anxiety for young people has been a constant theme throughout the different lockdowns”.

“That’s about the uncertainty, whether it's uncertainty about their futures, the uncertainty about the exam system, the uncertainty about returning to school, not seeing their friends, especially for teenagers.”

Luke says it is “stressful” to be facing assessments as part of grading for GCSEs this year after exams were cancelled, and he worries about getting grades needed for jobs in the future.

He is most looking forward to seeing friends “in real life” and “not through a screen or through a phone”.

India says she started lockdown without her own phone, so struggled to keep in touch with friends in the beginning.

She says it was “quite hard” not seeing friends, and even those who were not friends. “It's just weird not seeing people.” Instead of being around 30 children and several adults in a class, she went to seeing the same few people every day for months when off school.

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Zach Alcock, from Liverpool, missed less in-school time because his parents are key workers. “I got to meet new people I usually would not meet in lessons,” the 11-year-old tells The Independent.

For those who have missed out on months of time with peers, fears have been raised over what effect Covid-19 restrictions have had on younger children in particular.

“Younger children not mixing has affected their development,” Dr Street, from the RCPCH, tells The Independent. “We are worried about the development of the under-fives.”

Nurseries shut during the first spring lockdown but have been allowed to open during “stay at home” measures this year.

For smaller children, Dr Street says, ”their development is dependent on watching what other children do”.

“When you are talking about preschool age, learning to walk and learning to talk and learning to play and do all of those things is actually dependent on watching other children do it,” she says.

For Mus Osman, four, being taught at home “was so nice”, even though going back to school was “good”, he tells The Independent.

His mother, Deniz, worries that he has become shy after being unable to spend time with other children since last November. “He really needed to be back with kids, interacting and having that social conversation with people,” she says.

But the reception pupil has made strong progress during lockdown, moving up a level in maths and speaking and reading complex words more fluently – thanks to his mother, who has created a small mountain of flash cards, counting templates and other material which he brandishes proudly during our interview.

Ms Osman, 41, who works at Mus' school as a midday assistant, adds: “At first it was really hard and stressful. I was scared of letting him down. We were given so much to do, I was struggling at first.

“In the end I feel homeschooling him has benefited him.It did definitely bring us closer together.”

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Some children have flourished despite the lockdown, according to multi-academy trust founder Steve Chalke. They include natural introverts and those who love throwing themself into work. But even so, the Oasis Trust chief executive says these will have “missed out on being pushed emotionally”.

In autumn, Ofsted said children in the early stages of education and whose parents struggled to work more flexibly had been the hardest-hit by school closures and Covid restrictions, experiencing “the double whammy” of less time with parents and other children.

The watchdog’s report found regression in learning and basic skills like using cutlery among these children.

Education leaders have warned the impact of disruption will not fall evenly. Research has found one-third of disadvantaged students did not have access to a device for online work last year, and were less likely to have someone at home who could help.

Geoff Barton, from the Association of School and College Leaders, says coronavirus has highlighted socio-economic differences between children, which goes further than a digital divide.

“I think there ought to be an acknowledgement that for some young people, in some households where there are books, and whether our spaces to work and where there adults who can have a conversation with you, those young people will have been impacted far less,” he says.

Union members have been surprised by the “sheer visceral emotion” of children coming back into school, Mr Barton adds.

Seventeen-year-old Lydia says: “I’ve really loved being in school.”