Interdisciplinary perspectives on the transition back to school following the Covid lockdown: Part 1

The decision made by the Government in England to begin a phased reopening of schools from the 1st June 2020 has concerned school leaders and councils, with parents equally worried about the safety of their children. Our Special Interest Group for Wellbeing and Inclusion – representing a range of interdisciplinary perspectives – discussed some of the key issues surrounding the transition back to school, which led us to produce this three-part blog series.

Each blog offers a range of perspectives from academic staff and doctoral students from Cambridge University, drawing on relevant research and theories in our respective fields, to disentangle what the return to school means for teachers, learners and schools as a whole, not only in England, but worldwide.

Part 1 features perspectives from child and adolescent psychiatry (Professor Tamsin Ford), resilience in education (Charlotte Allen) and disadvantage in the context of education in Nigeria (Esther Anwuzia). Each contribution offers a response to the following questions:

‘What might be the key considerations for educators when supporting children to transition back to school following Covid? And how might schools best support children in a post-Covid lockdown world?’

The questions we face

The mental health perspective

Tamsin Ford, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge

This pandemic occurred against a backdrop of increasing concern and policy focus on the mental health of children and young people. Evidence suggests that clinically impairing mental health conditions are more common today than 20 years ago in the UK, but also that parents and young people are more willing to report concerns^[i],[ii]. Justifiably, there has been a huge level of concern about the impact of the pandemic on mental health, particularly the impact of school closures and disrupted peer relationships on children^[iii]. We should not assume that all, or even most, children will be adversely affected. All novel situations require adjustment, but most of us cope. It is important to balance the detection of clinically impairing mental health conditions against pathologising normal re-adjustment to a situation that will be familiar but different for both staff and pupils.

The impact of the lockdown will vary according the home and school circumstances of the individual, as well as their developmental stage. From a mental health perspective, the groups most likely to need additional support will be children with special educational needs or disability, those with pre-existing or novel anxiety or depressive disorders which can impact academic performance and attendance, and those who are at key transitional stages. Indeed, children who struggle with the school context may have experienced improved mental health during lockdown. Difficulties returning to school after even short breaks are often seen in children with anxiety and careful planning and a gradual hierarchical approach will be needed^[iv],[v]. Likewise, children with neurodevelopmental disorders, particular those with autistic traits who struggle with transitions, are likely to find the return to a situation that is familiar yet different harder to adjust to than their peers.

It is also useful to consider the impact on other services that work with children. Specialist CAMHS has undergone a huge transformation in working practices during the pandemic. Most services are working via teleconference or phone with little or no face to face appointments. A recent review by the Early Intervention Foundation suggests that provided therapist guidance is available, remote working seems equivalent to face to face interventions, although the research is limited.  In addition, the reality for children, families and practitioners is that remote working may be better for some, but worse for others. There are obvious concerns about safeguarding, for example, which mirror some of the issues facing educationalists. The recent large reduction in CAMHS referrals may indicate considerable unmet need that may emerge as schools re-open. Joint working and discussions of how best to manage this within local contexts is essential.

Can the resilience literature help schools and communities to support children in a post-Covid lockdown world?

Charlotte Allen, PhD Student, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

Many of us are familiar with the idea of ‘resilience’, a term used within everyday (mainly Western) discourse to refer to individuals ‘bouncing back’ from or withstanding difficulties. Indeed, within the UK, it has recently become an educational ‘buzz word’, with many schools seeking to build students’ resilience through interventions. In the academic literature, resilience refers to a broad family of theoretical concepts, encompassing positive adaption or ‘good outcomes’ despite the presence of adversity or a threat to normative development. The Covid-19 pandemic could certainly be viewed as a significant adversity, so might the resilience literature have something to offer in understanding how we can help young people? The sheer scale of the resilience literature is far beyond the scope of this blog, but here are three potential considerations, which may help us in supporting children in a post-Covid-19 lockdown world:

1. Resilience is not an ‘exceptional’ individual trait

With the beginning of resilience research in the 1970s, those labelled as ‘resilient’ were perceived as special or even ‘invincible’ or ‘invulnerable’. Many commonplace discourses today still perpetuate this narrative, with resilience often seen as a personal trait or related to something ‘superior’ about that individual. Yet, most contemporary researchers have argued that viewing resilience as an individual characteristic risks erroneously blaming those who do not demonstrate positive outcomes in response to difficulty. This will be important to recognise in relation to young people and the Covid-19 pandemic, to ensure that a divide is not created between those who are ‘coping well’ and those who are not. Although individual factors may play a role in resilience, these do not exist in a vacuum, instead developing from interactions with the environment. The huge body of research to date highlights that resilience is a complex and dynamic process, with social and cultural factors playing a substantial role. Ungar^[vi] has stressed that “Recovery from trauma is not an individual capacity alone but a function of the individual’s social ecology to facilitate recovery” (p.258).

2. Instead, resilience is ‘ordinary magic’

Influential resilience researcher, Ann Masten^[vii], has argued that resilience is ‘ordinary magic’ stating that it “does not come from rare and special qualities, but from the everyday magic of ordinary, normative human resources in the minds, brains, and bodies of children, in their families and relationships, and in their communities.” (p.235). Indeed, resilience has demonstrated in many people, across a wide range of potentially harmful situations, challenging notions of an extraordinary phenomenon. This may offer hope in a post-lockdown world.  As relationships, schools and communities are gradually restored, many of these things can in themselves help to facilitate resilience. However, Masten has also, importantly, proposed that the greatest threats to development are those that overwhelm the normal adaptive systems. In the context of the global pandemic, many normative resources have been disrupted, for example, children have been isolated from their friends, teachers, and wider society as a result of the lockdown. Moreover, even when lockdown eases, and children return to school, these schools as a whole may have been substantially impacted by the pandemic, so expecting a quick return to ‘normal’ operation may be unrealistic. In order for schools to show ‘resilience’, and thus best support their students, there likely also needs to be support for schools and teachers from wider communities and governments.

3. People may be impacted very differently by a particular adversity

Another consideration highlighted by the resilience literature is that a particular adversity may affect individuals and groups to differing degrees and in varied ways. Different students may be diversely impacted by Covid-19. Some groups of students may be especially vulnerable. My PhD research, for example, focuses upon LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and other sexual and gender minority) students, some of whom may be finding the lockdown particularly difficult, and even damaging. They may be cut off from their normal sources of LGBTQ+ support, such as schools, youth groups, or friends. They may be isolated at home with families to whom they are not ‘out’, and, in some cases, living in significantly homophobic or transphobic environments. The Kite Trust, a charity within Cambridgeshire which provides support to LGBTQ+ young people, has reported a 60% increase in demand since lockdown began, compared to the same period last year. It must also be noted that the impact upon individuals within particular groups may vary considerably, depending upon other aspects of their lives. Making broad assumptions about a particular threat may not establish the true hardship faced by any particular person, so connecting with young people and their experiences will be crucial.

COVID-19 & Education in Nigeria

Esther Anwuzia, Doctoral Student, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

The Covid-19 pandemic has cast a gloomy shadow on the education space, particularly for children from disadvantaged homes. Although efforts to reduce the effects of poverty on education have been extensive, the pandemic has further frustrated the United Nation’s goal to achieve learning for all children by 2030. The pandemic has led to a shift in learning methods to online and broadcast mediums (TV / radio). Unlike in the world of work where digital learning is a recognised (and mostly preferred) alternative to instructor-led training, and where several organizations already implement telecommuting, the world of education in contrast, has now been impelled to embrace both digital and virtual means of teaching and learning – which were beforehand considered incompatible to children’s learning and development. This is not to say however that digital learning resources have not been useful prior to the pandemic, but to emphasize that they were simply to augment in-school learning.

In low-income countries like Nigeria, enrolment of children in public primary and secondary schools is prevalent. This implies that in the absence of government sponsorship, children from these homes are unlikely to be able to access basic education – and even worse, access the internet. Although private sector participation in education has become very prominent and some of these private schools can be classified as ‘low fee’, most private schools however, specifically secondary schools, are accessible to only a handful of well-off Nigerian families. Since the pandemic has impoverished more households who are employed in the informal work sector and rely on daily income, parents in these households are faced with the difficult choice of either ensuring their livelihood or that their children continue to learn. Given these socio-economic facts, it is impossible to avoid a learning slide.

The current situation necessitates a closer look at two important questions: How do students, teachers and parents perceive learning, and, should learning be restricted to the school environment? Based on the relative degree of structure and defined outcomes, a distinction has been maintained between three types of learning –  formal, non-formal and informal learning. I believe that one way to support children from low-income backgrounds is to emphasise the importance of non-formal and informal learning in addition to formal learning. To achieve this, schools will need to actively engage parents and designated ‘community learning officers’ in the education of children. These learning officers could train parents on ways to convert the school curriculum into activities that can be carried out at home and how students can be taught to perceive daily activities and interactions as opportunities to learn. This will redefine learning as not just content-based but also behavioural.

What is clear is that the pandemic has emphasised the place of the home environment and family background in children’s education. For some children from low-income backgrounds, school is an escape from the inconvenience of living in a relatively small apartment with many siblings – which could be further exacerbated when classrooms are equally densely populated, as is the case in some public schools. A further consideration post COVID-19 should be increased investment in public education viz., more manpower and classroom infrastructure. This is essential because the public sector is the major education provider for a large number of children in Nigeria. 

When the lockdown is lifted and students transition back to school, educators in Nigeria particularly those in the public schools, should not overestimate the alternative learning strategies which were implemented during the pandemic, nor assume that all students participated in the radio and TV broadcasts. It will therefore be helpful for them to utilise the results of data on the effectiveness of and response to the diverse innovative learning strategies that were adopted during the pandemic. Schools or the education sector should from now, consider conducting a survey among students and parents on this. The Education Partnership (TEP) – a non-governmental education organisation in Nigeria, in collaboration with The Nigerian Economic Summit Group, have initiated this plan of action by designing an online survey to capture these perceptions. 

Lastly, educators should place less emphasis on preserving the school calendar and more emphasis on understanding how students have been affected by the pandemic and if possible, include their voices in this transition phase on how best the school can help with their challenges. Educators should acknowledge that for late adolescents, the pandemic has likely prolonged their entry into the workforce, especially for girls – who may have been pressured into marriage during the lockdown. This means that students’ priorities may have been altered by the pandemic and educators will need to provide mentoring support to students and also hold meetings with parents to reorient their mindset.

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[i]Ford, T. (2020). Editorial Perspective: Why I am now convinced that emotional disorders are increasingly common among young people in many countries. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. doi:10.1111/jcpp.13211

[ii]Pitchforth, J. M., Viner, R. M., & Hargreaves, D. S. (2016). Trends in mental health and wellbeing among children and young people in the UK: a repeated cross-sectional study, 2000-14. Lancet, 388, 93-93.

[iii] Holmes, E., O’Connor, R., Perry, H., Tracey, I., Wessely, S., Arseneault, L., Ballard, C., Christensen, H., Cohen-Silver, R., Everall, I., Ford, T., John, A., Kabir, T., King, K., Madan, I., Michie, S., Przybylski, A.K., Shafron, R., Sweeney, A., Worthman, C.M., Yardley, L., Cowan, K., Cope, C., Hotopf, M.,,Bullmore, E. (2020). Multidisciplinary research priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic: a call for action for mental health science. The Lancet Psychiatry. doi:10.1016/PII

[iv] Finning, K., Ukoumunne, O. C., Ford, T., Danielson-Waters, E., Shaw, L., Romero De Jager, I., Stentiford, L. & Moore, D. A. (2019). Review: The association between anxiety and poor attendance at school – a systematic review. Child and Adolescent Mental Health , 24(3),205-216. doi:10.1111/camh.12322

[v] Finning, K., Ukoumunne, O. C., Ford, T., Danielsson-Waters, E., Shaw, L., Romero De Jager, I., Stentiford, L. & Moore, D. A. (2019). The association between child and adolescent depression and poor attendance at school: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 245, 928-938. doi:10.1016/j.jad.2018.11.055

[vi] Ungar, M. (2013). Resilience, trauma, context, and culture. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 14(3), 255–266.

[vii] Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in development. American psychologist, 56(3), 227-238.