Teachers are being forced to improvise with sign language to communicate with primary school pupils whose language skills have been severely impacted by lockdowns, according to a new report. The Telegraph has more.
The study by The Association of School and College Leaders, a teaching union, found the pandemic had left a generation of children with major developmental issues, including a lack of toilet training, anxiety in social spaces and depression.
The report, written by Tim Oates who is Group Director of Cambridge University Press and Assessment, found the recovery from lockdowns would take five to 10 years to work its way through the education system.
“It will be a long slog, not a walk in the park,” Prof Oates said.
“There are serious dangers in simply assuming that schools are ‘back to normal’ – they are not – and assuming they will easily be able to meet the needs of young people affected by lockdowns and pandemic.”
The pandemic affected different cohorts of pupils in different ways, the report found.
It said teachers were “needing to improvise with sign language for five-year-olds with severely underdeveloped language to older children absent through anxiety”.
“While secondary schools are reporting an increase in reading difficulties among Year 7 pupils, poor personal organisation and challenging patterns of interaction, staff in primary schools are reporting very serious problems of arrested language development, lack of toilet training, anxiety in being in social spaces and depressed executive function,” it said.
“These problems are real, widespread and significant.
“We should urgently apply remedies to these problems and ensure the problems are diminished – hopefully to zero – rather than accept and accommodate them.”
Worth reading in full.
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