Commenting on a new report by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), looking at how primary school pupils’ progress was affected by Covid partial school closures, which finds that the youngest primary school pupils’ reading development was most affected by Covid shutdowns, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union NAHT, said:

“This report shows the scale of the challenge in helping children recover lost learning during the pandemic. Children in the first few years of school have undoubtedly been hit particularly hard as many had their pre-school years severely disrupted. Those years are absolutely vital when it comes to putting in place the building blocks for early reading.

“Schools have already been working incredibly hard to support those pupils who have been negatively affected by lockdowns and the good news is that we know good recovery progress is being made. Educators know what they are doing, and it is important that schools are allowed to focus on the strategies and programmes they know work best for the children in their schools.

“However, schools are still suffering from Covid disruption, with incredibly high levels of Covid-related absence over the winter for both pupils and staff. That has impeded the ability of schools to concentrate on the excellent recovery work they are doing. We can only hope that things will continue to improve next term – distractions must be kept to a minimum. Government must be prepared to give schools additional resources where they are needed.”