The government launched its £1 billion catch-up plan last month (Department for Education, 2020). The plan involves £650 million in funding shared across state primary and secondary schools over the 2020-2021 academic year.
The money is expected to be spent on small group tuition and is aimed at all pupils in state education who need it, regardless of their income or background. This is accompanied by a £350 million national tutoring programme aimed at increasing access to high-quality tuition for the most disadvantaged young people.
While funding of this magnitude must be welcomed, we are in danger of beginning the next academic year with a language of deficit and catch-up; we are in danger of arriving in September with a message that students are behind and that ‘catching up’ on their academic performance matters above all else. The pressure this message will generate could be extremely damaging to young people who are already suffering after their lockdown experiences.
While the learning gaps that have developed or worsened during lockdown must not be ignored, in September we will face another much more concerning gap. In September, the trauma gap will be a real and present danger in schools, especially for those young people who are already vulnerable, perhaps with existing mental health issues or safeguarding problems. We will also see a new group of vulnerable students emerge – students who were previously not on our radar as a cause for concern but who have suffered during lockdown, not least due to bereavement (see page 117).
The trauma gap is a term coined by Barnardo's (2020) in its recent report (see page 143), which highlights the challenges that practitioners have already been witnessing during their work in the community during lockdown. The report calls for a period of readjustment in schools and includes some good suggestions, many of which could be supported via the work of school nurses. The priority has to be making time for students to talk. In doing so, we will put students on the road for recovery and we will also give them the opportunity to make disclosures.
The government needs to redirect its focus from the attainment gap to the trauma gap, and we need to seize this opportunity for a change in school culture to place mental health at its heart, rebalancing the education system so that it prioritises child welfare and wellbeing, so that it is on a par with academic achievement. One thing will be certain in September: we will not be able to and should not strive to go back to business as usual.