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Covid: Longitudinal study of year 4 and 5 pupils shows green shoots of recovery

Learning gaps caused by Covid-19 “appear to have closed” for year 4 and 5 pupils in reading and maths, according to an on-going longitudinal study which has identified some of the successful strategies schools have employed.
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Schools are using strategies including small group work and staff redeployment as well as one-to-one catch-up and small group wellbeing sessions, the report finds, as they continue to deal with the aftermath of the pandemic on pupils’ social and academic development.

The latest measurement of recovery progress, published this week by the Education Endowment Foundation and the National Foundation for Educational Research (Rose et al, 2024) draws on evidence from a key stage 1 longitudinal study which is following a group of children who were at the very start of primary school during the Covid-19 partial school closures in 2020.

These pupils are now in years 4 and 5 and this update finds positive signs of recovery: “Overall, the Covid-19 gap appears to have closed for year 4 and 5 pupils on average in both reading and mathematics. Indeed, in year 4 mathematics and year 5 reading there was no significant difference in pupils’ performance compared with the 2017 pre-pandemic standardisation samples.”

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