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Schools reopening: Children locked down at home spending just 2.5 hours a day on schoolwork

One fifth of children — the equivalent of 2 million across the UK — are doing less than an hour of schoolwork a day or none whatsoever

Children locked down at home in the UK are spending an average of 2.5 hours each day doing schoolwork, according to research.

The study by the UCL Institute of Education suggests that children are doing about half the amount of work reported in a previous survey, implying that learning losses are much greater than previously thought.

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It also highlights huge variation in how much work children are doing, with stark disparities emerging across different regions.

Regional divides

While one fifth of pupils – the equivalent of two million children in the UK – do no schoolwork at home, or less than an hour a day, 17 per cent put in more than four hours a day.

The research used data collected in the last two weeks of April from a special online survey covering 4,559 children from households throughout the UK.

It found that the amount of different types of schoolwork completed by children varies significantly across the UK.

Leo (C), aged 6, and Espen, aged 3, are assisted by their mother Moira as they navigate online learning resources provided by their infant school in the village of Marsden, near Huddersfield, northern England on March 23, 2020 on the first school day since the nationwide closure of almost all schools except for the children of 'key workers', amidst the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. - Families across the UK were coming to grips with homeschooling and online resources after the government closed schools to almost all children as a measure to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. (Photo by OLI SCARFF / AFP) (Photo by OLI SCARFF/AFP via Getty Images)
The Government is understood to be considering summer camps, a national tutoring service and extra school funds as part of its catch-up plan for children who have missed out on schooling (Photo: OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty)

Offline schoolwork is highest in London, the South and East of England and Northern Ireland. In the South East, for example, 28 per cent of children receive four or more pieces of offline schoolwork per day, compared with the countrywide average of 20 per cent.

However in the North East of England – which has the lowest figure in the UK – the proportion receiving four or more daily pieces is just nine per cent.

Online teaching

Online teaching is most common in London, with 12.5 per cent of children receiving four or more online lessons or meetings daily, compared with a national average of 7 per cent.

But online provision is especially scarce in Wales, where the proportion is just 2 per cent.

The research also found that the education of children from disadvantaged backgrounds has been hit harder by the lockdown.

Fifteen per cent of pupils eligible for free school meals receive four or more pieces of offline schoolwork a day, compared to 21 per cent of children not eligible for support. Eleven per cent of free school meals pupils do more than four hours of schoolwork a day, compared to 19 per cent among those not eligible.

Children at private schools were meanwhile much more likely to do more work than their peers in the state sector.

‘Gloomy picture’

Professor Francis Green, who led the research, said it presented a “gloomy picture of lost schooling and low amounts of school work”.

“The closure of schools, and their only-partial re-opening, constitute a potential threat to the educational development of a generation of children,” he said.

“Everyone is losing out in this generation, some much more than others. Better home schoolwork provision, and better still an early safe return to school for as many as possible, should now become a top priority for government.”

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