Teachers say this year’s GCSE candidates 'some of the worst affected by the pandemic' - what it could mean

• A new survey of thousands of educators has found the impacts of the pandemic are lingering on in classrooms
• Secondary school teachers say this year’s Year 10 and 11s are the cohort with the biggest learning gaps
• Some report pupils being years behind academically
• Pupil’s mental health and disruptive behaviour are some of the biggest issues they notice

This year’s GCSE candidates may be among the pupils most disadvantaged by the pandemic, teachers say.

The 2024/25 academic year’s summer secondary school exam season is underway now, and will run until late June. With the UK’s first Covid-19 lockdown now more than five years ago, you could be forgiven for thinking that it has little impact on pupils sitting their GCSEs now - but new research has shown that may not be the case.

In an updated report released this month, education tech company the ParentPay Group - which surveyed more than 9,000 teachers, school leaders and speech and language therapists - has shown that its aftershocks are being felt in schools to this day.

More than four out of five educators say learning gaps caused by the pandemic are still having a negative impact on pupil achievement. Issues like poor attendance and disruptive behaviour are also rearing their heads, with many children missing out on some of the most crucial early developmental years

There’s no doubt that the pandemic has had a lasting impact on young people and their education, and will do for years to come. But just how much of a ripple is it really causing in the classroom five years down the line? And what do education experts say needs to change to set things right? Here’s what you need to know:

How bad is the problem - and what could it mean for GCSEs?

In some cases, teachers fear their pupils are years behind where they should be academically, according to the report. When it comes to secondary school exams, which test their knowledge at a certain level, this can be a problem.

Nearly half of all teachers (46%) said their students had a learning gap of between half an academic year and two full years - with some primary teachers especially noticing even deeper setbacks. More than one-in-ten (13%) said their worst-affected pupils were more than two years behind, while a quarter said their worst-affected pupils were one-to-two years behind.

It was impacting how they did in tests and other assessments too. A staggering (86%) of educators said the pandemic was still harming achievement, while more than half of these teachers (53%) described it as having a ‘major’ impact.

While primary teachers were generally more concerned about the impact on their pupils - most of whom were very young during the height of the pandemic - secondary teachers were worried too. They cited their current Year 10 (15%) and Year 11 (24%) cohorts as being the worst affected by pandemic-related learning gaps - both pivotal years for their GCSEs.

Many of these pupils, some of whom are sitting their exams at the moment, would have been in Year 7 during the Covid-19 lockdowns. This means that their first year of secondary school was disrupted.

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How do we set things right for ‘generation catch-up’?

When quizzed on the key factors negatively impacting pupils’ learning post-pandemic, teachers cited poor behaviour (31%), mental health and well-being (22%), and parental engagement (19%) as the top three across both the primary and secondary school years.

This lines up with official data, which shows exclusions and suspensions at state-funded schools during the 2023/24 autumn term shot up a whopping 94% on autumn 2019. The most commonly cited reason for both was persistent disruptive behaviour.

Meanwhile, a Parliamentary report published in November 2024 found that psychological wellbeing has been declining in schools - only accelerated by the pandemic. A survey of nearly 13 thousand teens found that in 2022, 44% of people aged 16-17 said they had experienced high psychological distress, compared to 23% in 2007. This figure was especially high among young people who had suffered a severe Covid-19 infection, had to shield, had experienced food insecurity, or had experienced a personal loss during the pandemic.

“Despite being five years on from the pandemic, our research shows that families, schools and pupils are still feeling the impact,” said ParentPay Group’s Louise Pink, a former headteacher.

She continued: “Absenteeism continues to be a significant challenge, along with the ongoing impact of rising mental health concerns, closing the gaps in learning, supporting and engaging with parents and carers, and tackling pupil behaviour, which continues to affect the day-to-day school improvement drive.”

Absence and attendance figures for the full 2023/24 school year showed that the overall absence rate - or the percentage of half-days missed for all pupils - lingers stubbornly above pre-pandemic levels. One in five children (20%) were deemed persistently absent, meaning they miss at least 10% of these half-day sessions, double the amount of children chronically absent before the pandemic.

Families taking unauthorised (but often much cheaper) term-time holidays has emerged as a big driver of children missing class. The Government has recently taken action to try and curb this, including steeper fines for parents. Teachers have also called for price regulation to combat the high cost of holidays during school breaks. Ms Pink added, while many have also called for greater efforts to educate parents on the long-term impact of missed school days.

Across the board, however, there was strong support for early intervention and support for families facing barriers to attendance, including home visits and working with external agencies. She continued: “Early intervention and targeted support for families can make fundamental differences to outcomes for pupils, both academically and for their overall well-being.”

There were great efforts being made to address some of the other issues ‘generation catch up’ faced too, Ms Pink said. “As the ramifications of the pandemic continue to impact pupil learning, addressing these challenges and digging deeper into the data to understand patterns, target intervention, and build skills is essential. Teachers are actively trialling new ways to promote enhanced well-being in their classrooms, taking a trauma-informed approach to managing challenging behaviour and implementing new strategies to strengthen parental engagement and raise attendance levels.”

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