The impact of Covid school closures is now painfully clear

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.