Experts warn of 'long term damage' to education due to school closures

Sally Power
Professor Sally Power has said that students will suffer from the enforced break. Credit: ITV Wales.

Students across Wales returned to school earlier this month after being partially or fully closed since March because of the coronavirus pandemic, but experts have warned of the long term damage it may have caused to some pupils.

Around 1,500 schools and colleges reopened their doors three weeks ago following the three month lockdown-induced closure with a number of measures in place to keep the 500,000 students and staff safe.

Measures include: Staggered start times, smaller classroom sizes, and newly created sanitation stations are just some of the new-world normalities which have been introduced to make education possible, during this time of global pandemic.

There has been a lot of speculation as to how the break will impact students and Professor Sally Power from Cardiff University has warned that the attainment gap between pupils will have widened as a result of the pandemic.

"We tend to talk about statistics and figures but we are talking about people’s futures here and I think we should be extremely worried," she continued.

"There are different kinds of attainment gaps, but the one which causes most concern is the socio economic attainment gap, where young people from disadvantaged backgrounds do far less well than their more advantaged classmates."

Students expecting GCSE and A-Level grades across Wales were given scores by their teachers which were then moderated.

Wales' education minister Kirsty Williams apologised at the time for making the situation 'worse' after the grade moderation.

Now, the National Education Union says that the aim is to ensure that students who are preparing for exams at the end of the 2020/21 academic year are not put at a disadvantage because of missed hours in school.

“We have to learn the lessons from what occurred in august this year," said David Evans of the NEU.

"We have to apply them for next year if we are going to be in the same position. And we want to make sure those who are in years 11, 12 and 13 who are undertaking national examinations - national tests get the right results."

You can hear more about this issue on Wales this Week, which returns for a new series on Thursday 24 September at 7.30pm on ITV Cymru Wales.

“we have to learn the lessons from what occurred in august this year. We have to apply them for next year if we are going to be in the same position. And we want to make sure those who are in years11, 12 and 13 who are undertaking national examinations - national tests get the right results” - David Evans NEU