Schools' Responses to COVID-19: The Challenges Facing Schools and Pupils in September 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact on all areas of society, including education. On 20 March 2020, schools closed their gates to all pupils apart from vulnerable pupils and children of keyworkers. In June, primary schools opened to selected year groups (Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6) and secondary schools invited pupils in Years 10 and 12 to have at least some face-to-face contact with their teachers. On 23 June, the Prime Minister confirmed that primary and secondary schools in England would return with full attendance in September (Danechi and Roberts, 2020). The Government (DfE, 2020e) acknowledged the challenge of achieving a balance between the priority of fully opening schools and controlling the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Schools are asked to ensure high standards of hygiene (for example through regular hand sanitising, deep cleaning and avoiding pupils sharing equipment). They are also asked to promote social distancing as far as possible (for example by splitting classes into smaller groups and keeping these separate from one other, and by separating year groups, reducing movement around the school, arranging desks in forward-facing rows, asking staff to socially distance and minimising the number of staff working with each group). This research investigates the impact of COVID-19 on mainstream primary and secondary schools in England. It follows an earlier National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) survey of schools' responses to COVID-19 in May (ED608586) and focuses on the challenges schools will face from September. It considers the extent to which pupils are behind in their curriculum learning in relation to teachers' normal expectations for the end of the school year; the impact of COVID-19 on the 'disadvantage gap'; the need for catch-up support from September; and the logistical issues and resource implications of opening schools fully while taking measures to reduce the risk of infection. It also considers schools' experiences of offering remote learning from March, and blended learning (remotely and in-school) from June, in order to inform decisions about the support and resources that schools will need in the event of future lockdowns.