RISE 1: Resilience In Schools and Education

Education in a time of COVID-19

By Dr Lee Randall

The RISE programme is Now Live! Find out more here.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a testing time for us all and it has taken a lot of effort for even those of us fortunate enough to have suffered no significant hardship, to come to terms with ‘the new normal’. So many elements of our lives have changed and we have faced new, unforeseen challenges each day as we have sought to do the ‘right’ thing, at a time when there is no clear sense of what the best choices are.

“As the lockdown begins to ease, thoughts are beginning to turn to what happens next; namely when and how we can safely get our children settled back into education.”

For parents like myself across the country, concerns around how to support, care for and educate their children whilst, above all, keeping them safe have been chief amongst our priorities throughout lockdown. However, as the lockdown begins to ease, thoughts are beginning to turn to what happens next; namely when and how we can safely get our children settled back into education.

For those of us working within education, it is our responsibility to make this happen, and it is no easy task. Children will have had vastly differing experiences of lockdown dependent upon a myriad of factors and these experiences will determine to a large degree, how those children present upon returning to school. Even for children who have had largely positive experiences of lockdown, yet are keen to return to school, the transition is likely to throw up a number of challenges. The recently published Childhood Trust report makes this abundantly clear.

Separating from loved ones with whom they have been with for so many months will be difficult for the majority of children (even those who may be too ‘cool’ to admit it!) and managing the excitement and trepidation of returning to school after a significant absence of 3 months (or more in some cases) may prove to be a challenge in an of itself. Reforming relationships with peers and staff in schools brings its own complexities, particularly in such unusual circumstances, and the school many children have left will not be the school they are returning to, even in September. All of this is before we even consider the lost learning and the desire to ensure we support children to feel confident with their learning again, particularly children from more disadvantaged backgrounds who may have struggled to keep up with home learning to the same degree as many of their peers.

At The Educational Psychologists, we recognise that our children are going to need even more from us in the education sector to support them to manage and overcome the challenges ahead, and to process the experiences they have just been through. Children will need to be more courageous, resourceful, robust and independent than ever before to thrive after the challenges the coronavirus pandemic has posed and will continue to pose. So we began to think about what it would mean for children to develop such skills and how we could help them to do so; this led us to focus on and research how we can build children’s resilience…

This is 1 of 3 blogs in this resilience series.

• See Part 2: ‘The Importance of Resiliency’

• See Part 3: ‘RISE: The Resilience in Schools and Education program’

To find out more about whole-school RISE (Resilience In Schools and Education) training for your school, click here.

Find out more about Dr Lee Randall.