If the UK government retains any doubts about the scale of the educational challenge it faces after Covid-19, they can now be swiftly swept aside. The challenge is mountainous. New evidence published today by the Education Endowment Foundation, which I chair, starkly reveals the size of it. The study conducted by the National Foundation for Educational Research contrasts the performance of 10,000 Year 1 and Year 2 students (six and seven-year-olds) at the end of the most recent lockdown with the performance of those year groups over the same period in 2019.
The findings ought to concentrate minds. Year 1 pupils made on average three months’ less progress for both reading and mathematics this year, compared with the cohort of spring 2019. Year 2 pupils made three months’ less progress for reading in spring 2021 and around two months’ less progress for mathematics. The study also reveals a substantial gap between disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils.
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