Four Ways Children Could Make Up For Lost School Time

There are several plans flying around on how our children can catch up on lost school time. The vast majority of children have missed out on several months of face to face interaction due to school closures.

Did you know that the government is considering whether or not to make the school holidays shorter and having extended school days.

We’d love to get your thoughts on this in the comment below this article.

Since the government is thinking about this, we thought we would add our own 2c into the conversation.

Here’s our 5 measures which could help pupils:

Summer Schools

As long as we have qualified teachers helping out in our summer schools, we think this is an excellent idea. There’s no better way of catching up with their education than doing some extra learning during the summer months.

The great thing is, so many more teachers will be vaccinated against Covid by the time our summer comes around.

It will also be much easier and safer for both teachers and students if they can spend as much time outside in the fresh air as possible.

The only thing that could stumper the plans of these schools is the funding for them. As you can appreciate, these teachers would need to be paid to give up their free time and whether or not local councils would be able to fund this is anyone’s guess at the moment.

How much money has been promised?

• In England, £1.3bn has been benchmarked for catch-up programmes.
• In Scotland they promised £127m of funding to help disadvantaged pupils.
• Both Wales and Northern Ireland have awarded tens of millions of funding for catch up schools.

Weekly tutoring sessions

One of the best ways of kids to catch up on much needed education is via one-to-one tuition. 

If those classes are weekly that’s even better because this would mean a student could make up three to six months of academic progress. This is particularly useful literacy and numeracy among primary-school pupils.

The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) in England has received more than £350m of funding from the government with more allocated for the next financial year.

Did you also know that over 100,000 disadvantaged pupils have actually benefited from this service already which began in November 2020 which is awesome!

It was a relatively slow ramp last year, but really went into overdrive at the start of 2021. Also, another interesting stat is the fact that most of the tutors taking part are actually university students.

Repeating the school year

In a lot of European countries such as Germany, they think nothing of students retaking a whole year. However, this is an extremely rare thing to do in the UK.

We actually think this is a great idea. Not only can these students have fallen behind, but it’s actually much better for society when we have more educated. 

So what are the benefits?

Increase in Teacher Communication - The more time a teacher spends with a student the more likely it is that the student understands the subject and feels more comfortable asking for help to gain the answers they need. 

Also, the teacher has a much better perspective of that child’s ability since they already have 1 year of previous knowledge of that student. This should make things much easier educating them the following year. 

Consider Different Teachers - This is not the case for all students, but some may benefit from having a new teacher teach them a certain topic. This isn’t necessarily because they are better at teaching that topic. 

But, not every student gets on with all of their teachers. Sometimes they just don’t gel or they find their way of teaching hard to understand.

Consider Different Curriculum - Again, this won’t resonate will all students, but a change of curriculum may benefit some. Oftentimes you can have the same information presented in a much different way that yields positive results. 

Using a completely different curriculum sometimes provides your child with a fresh perspective and view of the material instead of them feeling like they’re doing the same thing twice.

Add Focus on a Child’s Positive Skills - Sometimes, children can be labveled dumb or stupid wrongly just because they are repeating a school year. Not every child learns at the same pace and their development is at a different stage to their peers.

What could really provide them with a boost of confidence is getting them involved in extracurricular activities that really showcase their talent. 

It also gives them something to look forward to when they go to school. The positive effects of this are profound.

This is not only something that will help them as students, but will also provide them with the foundation they need as they get older.

Extending School Days

This probably sounds far too simple a concept, but this does actually work in some cases. The extra teaching time without the pressure of a full class can sometimes help. The unfortunate thing with this is the cost. 

Most teacher’s will need to be compensated for staying back since these are considered after school clubs. Whether or not the school has the budget for this will vary from school to school and area to area.