Education has continued to be in the news this week, with the government making announcements about isolation and mobile phones (again). We’ve got updates on both in this week’s blog.
But first…
The Big Lockdown Learning Parent Survey
Do you remember all the Parent Ping questions about home learning during lockdown? Our Chief Analyst has been crunching the numbers and has published a big report about lockdown learning for the Education Endowment Foundation. We found:
Parents think schools did a great job (but this didn’t really affect how successful parents thought home learning had been)
Some families found it harder than others (but not a lot)
Families were challenged when they didn’t have enough access to laptops etc., when it was difficult to combine home learning with other commitments, and when they didn’t understand the work set by schools.
Read our blog all about the findings here.
Avoiding isolation
Before the end of the Christmas term, we spotted a small trend of parents withdrawing kids from school early to make sure they didn’t catch covid or need to isolate during the first week of the break. This week we checked to see if it is happening again. Whilst overall the vast majority of parents are definitely not doing this there is a small group considering this, just like last time.
Banning mobile phones
As reported last week, the government is focusing a lot of attention on mobile phones in schools. We already knew that lots of schools don’t allow mobiles anyway, but what do you think about an outright ban?
You are right behind a ban on phones in the classroom, although 8 out of 10 say this is already not allowed… so it’s a bit like making a law against diving in the shallow end of the swimming pool!
But when it comes to having phones more generally present in schools, it becomes a bit more complicated. Back in April, lots of parents of secondary school kids told us that a phone is necessary for the journey to and from school, so it’s not surprising that 4 in 10 do not support an outright ban.
But, what if it’s not the phone that’s the problem but what kids do on them? Social media is a big draw to keep checking on your phone, so how about banning that instead? Whilst there were slightly more in favour of this than against, there’s certainly not overwhelming support for this idea, especially if you have older kids.
And also...
🌱 17% of primary-aged kids are actively interested in gardening compared to only 5% of secondary-aged ones.
⚽ As sporting success draws nearer, more of you are watching the Euro 2020 matches with your kids… Last week saw an 18 percentage point rise in the number of families who’d watched at least some games compared to the week before
Coming up next week
Next week we have questions about the end of term, questions about what makes a good teacher and we look ahead to the summer. So make sure you download the app and set your notifications to PING every day!