September is upon us, which means one thing for parents and children alike: new term time. With our teachers, students, support staff and many other members of the education ecosystem returning to their own schools, many will be excited to engage in person, after months of remote learning. Unfortunately, this won't apply to everyone.
Throughout the summer, No Isolation worked with independent researcher, Henry Peck, to better understand the effect of lockdown on educational and emotional development in school-aged children. We collected responses from 1,005 parents and carers of 1,477 children from primary and secondary school and were sad to find that more than 75% of these children were lonely some or all of the time during the lockdown.
We were alarmed to find that, according to our research, about 540,000 people will continue to stay at home, due to mental or physical health concerns in the USA, directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those children that aren't able to attend classes in person, keeping some form of connection with their peers is greatly significant. Video calls have been one of the options to protect their educational development and to prevent them from becoming isolated.
They are normal during the pandemic, but are not necessarily the answer for those studying from home. When everyone is online in a video call, it can be an acceptable experience. However, if everyone is gathered and a single student is watching through a video call, it can have the opposite effect. Therefore, having an engaging experience over a video conference can be very difficult for some children, making it easy to switch off.
If you're worried about how your child might be reacting, or concerned that a more digital life could be leaving them isolated, the first thing to do is talk with them: meaningful solutions should be developed in partnership with the people they're aimed at. Now, we should be listening to children and helping to make sure they are heard in these stormy times.
