How our schools are working hard to re-establish normality

Barnaby Lenon, chair of the Independent Schools Council, says ‘there is no technological substitute for a good teacher’

In the years 2020 and 2021 schools were highly disrupted by the pandemic. Between January 2020 and July 2021 44% of in-classroom days were lost in the UK, double that of France but not as many as Italy.

On the whole teachers did a very good job. It is sometimes forgotten that during the long lockdowns most schools were still having to educate, face-to-face, children of key workers and those classified as being vulnerable. So teachers were communicating with most pupils through online lessons while at the same time teaching smaller numbers of children who were still in school.

Some groups of pupils suffered more than others. Those who had family members who were medically vulnerable missed more school because they did not want to put close relatives at risk. Those whose families lacked internet access or sufficient digital devices for each school-age child missed much of the work. Some parts of the country had more severe outbreaks of Covid than others and schools were closed for longer.

The youngest pupils were inevitably less able to benefit from remote teaching – they simply lacked the concentration required. The least motivated pupils of any age used lockdown as an excuse to skip lessons and schools found it hard to compel them to do work.

There were many lessons from the experience of the pandemic. One was that all secondary age pupils need access to a computer in their homes but another was that teaching online is not as good as having pupils in school. Quite apart from the learning loss, most pupils suffered from the absence of social interaction and the abandonment of co-curricular activities such as sport and drama. Many hours in front of a screen is bad for mental health and there is no technological substitute for a good teacher.

The public exam results in 2020 and 2021 were simply teacher assessments. Although many pupils took mock exams or school tests in 2021, no GCSEs or A-levels were sat. The measures put in place by the government were designed to compensate pupils for an appallingly disrupted year, but in the case of those whose learning loss was greatest the compensation was limited. For this reason, the gap in the grades between more advantaged children and those from lower income homes grew wider.

Independent schools did disproportionately well. This was partly because their pupils were more likely to have access to a computer at home, partly because independent schools were generally much quicker to offer the full curriculum online. In many state schools pupils were not allowed to have their cameras on during lessons while most independent schools made ‘cameras on’ compulsory.

Because of the use of school-assessed grades, there was grade inflation – especially at A-level. The percent of A-levels graded A* or A rose from 25.5% in 2019 to 38.6% in 2020 and 44.8% in 2021. For independent schools in 2021 the figure was over 70%. These figures are not surprising but they overstate the brilliance of the pupils and are bad news for universities who need to select on the basis of grades. This is why there must be a rowing back to the standards of 2019 or, if that is too difficult, a completely revised grading system.

But exams in 2022, if they happen, will be subject to adjustments – such as prior publication of the topics which are going to come up – and the grading will remain generous.

Parents of secondary age pupils will often look up the Department for Education’s exam league tables. League tables were suspended for exam results in 2020 and 2021 but the results for 2019 can still be seen and are useful.

In 2021 the Everyone’s Invited website exposed the fact that many girls were being abused in one way or another by boys. An Ofsted review concluded that the problem was probably found in all schools to some extent and that schools needed to do a lot more in terms of relationships education. Inspectors are now on the look-out and parents have been warned not to allow their children to attend unsupervised parties. Schools are doing what they can to clamp down on inappropriate use of the internet and social media.

At the time of writing, it is too soon to know what the academic year 2021-22 will bring in terms of Covid and school closures. Independent schools are relieved that they survived 2020-2021, a time when many overseas pupils were unable to return to the UK and of course there were concerns about unemployment and the ability of parents to pay fees. A few schools closed, but no more than in any other year.

But it was a traumatic period. It is worth remembering that those pupils taking A-levels in 2022 have never sat a public exam. Too few pupils have been required to commit knowledge to the memory. Some younger pupils are years behind. So the shadow of the pandemic will be long, but the best schools have already done a great deal to re-establish normality and teachers deserve our thanks.

This article first appeared in the 2022 edition of Which School? You can read the new edition here: