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This page was last updated: 25th June 2020 2020
Information and resources for education and childcare professionals working with children during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis
This Department for Education and Public Health England guidance will assist staff in addressing coronavirus (COVID-19) in educational settings. This includes childcare, schools, further and higher educational institutions.This guidance may be updated in line with the changing situation.
Information and advice from the Early Years Alliance about the coronavirus for early years settings, including protecting and reassuring children and families and infection control measures.
Basic information about COVID-19 and stopping the infection for schools, plus fun lesson plans on hand washing and respiratory hygiene for KS1, KS2 and KS3.
Education in quarantine: what can we learn from early childhood educators in China? Chinese early childhood practitioners are busy preparing for the re-opening of kindergartens after more than two months of quarantine. Jie Gao and Clare Brooks from UCL. asked some of them to share their experiences and lessons learnt during quarantine. They also sought out articles written by Chinese Early Years experts for supporting practitioners and parents in such an unprecedented situation. Their advice is underlined.
VWV is a law firm with four offices in the UK. In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, they have developed a free resource library, where they look at the legal issues relating to coronavirus and how to address them. There is a section for schools, including FAQ for academies, academies and academy trusts, as well as information about the provision of educational services and what schools should be doing.
Videos
This video provides guidance to those working in schools and colleges about how they can help their pupils manage their mental health and wellbeing during any disruption caused by coronavirus.
Healthy Minds Lincolnshire Laura talks through five top tips for teaching staff during the coronavirus pandemic.
Resources
Support and advice for schools and parents/carers from the British Psychology Society following the closure of schools in the UK.
Wellbeing tips for schools that remain open and links to other resorces.
A guide to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of pupils and students during periods of disruption from The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
A guide to supporting the mental health and wellbeing of staff at schools and colleges during periods of disruption from The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
A guide to supporting vulnerable pupils and students during periods of disruption from The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
Pears Family School is an Alternative Provision specialist school run by The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. In line with DfE guidance the school will remain open during this crisis. The school provides information on what this looks like on the ground.
This briefing from the NSPCC summarises the latest guidance for UK schools on safeguarding during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Reports
In an effort to prevent the transmission of Covid-19, governments around the world have closed schools. School closures are negatively impacting the well-being of children and young people and, in some contexts, might not be effectively reducing transmissions. The Inter-agency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) and The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action call on policymakers to: Consider the impacts of school closures on the education and protection outcomes of children and youth; Balance these impacts with a considered review of the health impacts; and Make informed, child-centred decisions on when and why to reopen schools.
Latest research findings from Parentkind on parents’ views on their child’s education under the current school closures across England. As parents continue to support their child’s remote learning at home for the near future, government must pay attention to parents’ growing concerns around their child’s education, mental health and well-being and provide reassurances on how they will be met.
Written after children returned to school in September 2020, this report explores the experiences of children as they returned to the classroom after months of being separated from their friends and attempting to learn from home. For some children, returning to learning from home is a real concern and for many being back at school is cause for excitement. While stresses continue, including worries about the virus and anxiety about catching up with schoolwork or about exams, this research demonstrates the positive impact that reopening of schools has had on most children in England.
This study from Juniper Education based on data from more than 6,000 schools representing 1.47 million pupils sheds new light on the impact of the crisis by comparing the attainment of primary school children to see how children have fared before and during the pandemic.
The National Literacy Trust conducted their latest Annual Literacy Survey between January and mid-March 2020. This report focuses on the reading practices of children and young people before and during lockdown. To better capture the experiences and opinions of children and young people during lockdown, the online survey also contained numerous open-text questions, which have been themed and analysed to help contextualise findings in this report.
In England, school closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic represented a sudden but relatively longlasting shock to children’s education. During the first lockdown, schools were closed to all but the most vulnerable children and those with key worker parents from 23 March to the end of May; they began to reopen in June and July, but some children remained out of the classroom until September. In this paper, a panel of children is followed between April/May and June/July 2020 to document how home learning experiences changed over the course of the first lockdown, and how these changes were influenced by the partial and voluntary return to school over this period. Little evidence was found that children adapted to home learning over the course of the lockdown; instead, learning time fell among those who were not offered the chance to return to school. Pupils who returned to school saw their learning time rise substantially, even conditional on observable and unobservable characteristics. However, while the opportunity to return to in-person schooling at least part-time was relatively evenly distributed, better-off parents were around 50% more likely to send their children back to school when given the choice. Since better-off students also increased their learning time by more when they returned to school, our results suggest that substantial targeted support will be needed to help disadvantaged pupils catch up, even after all children are back in the classroom.