Extend school day by an hour to help ‘lost generation’ of Covid children

The Centre for Social Justice has called for children 'scarred by lockdown' to have their lives put back on track
The Centre for Social Justice has called for children 'scarred by lockdown' to have their lives put back on track - Sally Anscombe/Photodisc

The school day should be extended by an hour to help the “lost generation” of Covid children, a think tank has said.

A report by the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has called for teenagers “scarred by lockdown” to have their lives put back on track.

It urges the Government to add an extra five hours to the school week and for tackling truancy to be a priority in a series of proposals designed to give children a “world class education”.

The report, called A United Nation and produced by the CSJ’s Social Justice Commission, said lockdowns had left a “generation feeling ill-equipped for life”.

“Covid-19 lockdowns stripped years from the childhoods of our most disadvantaged young people, and we continue to reap the whirlwind with over 140,000 children missing more school than they attend, soaring mental health problems, and a generation feeling ill-equipped for life,” it said.

The cross-party report said that “tackling the attendance crisis” should be made “a national priority”, but that the Government’s efforts to tackle it “continue to fall short”.

The level of severe absence – where children are off of school more than not – was still at crisis levels of around 140,000 children, it said.

It called for 2,000 attendance mentors to be deployed immediately, with a “national parental participation strategy” to be set up in the longer term to get schools and parents to engage with each other on truancy.

The report also recommends the extended school week should include a “right to sport” and include a minimum of two extra hours a week of sport and outdoor education.

This would help to close the “activity gap”, it said, with a third of children considered inactive because they do less than 30 minutes of physical activity per day.

The mental health of Britain’s youth also needs to be addressed, it said, with the report predicting that “over one in four of five- to 15-year-olds will have a mental disorder” by 2030 based on the current trend.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, the chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, said lockdown 'harmed young people across the country'
Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, the chairman of the Centre for Social Justice, said lockdown 'harmed young people across the country'

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, the founder and chairman of the CSJ, said: “Our response to Covid-19 with its lockdown isolating people in communities, while damaging to so many of all ages, has unquestionably harmed young people across the country.

“Those in communities already suffering from poverty and social breakdown, have faced the greatest damage,” he said.

“Government must act upon the recommendations from the CSJ’s cross-party Social Justice Commission before the harm becomes irrevocable.”

The report also calls for better financial incentives to get the best teachers working in the most challenged schools and additional funding to subsidise boarding school places for children in care.

It also said that regulator Ofsted should be inspecting employability as a key part of its reports on schools, with employers often complaining that pupils are “poorly equipped for the world of work”.

In other areas it recommends optional national military service that 15 to 20 per cent of 18-year-olds would sign up to, and for funding for quality youth services.

It also calls for £6 billion of government money to be switched from Whitehall to local government across the country in a bid to tackle economic inactivity driven by the post-pandemic surge in those of working age quitting the labour market.

The Social Justice Commission is made up of figures from across the political spectrum, such as Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Sir Stephen Timms MP, the social security minister, Miriam Cates, former Tory MP, Tim Farron, former Liberal Democrat leader, and Lord King, former Bank of England governor.

It was produced after consultation with more than 300 front-line charities, social enterprises and local organisations and polling of more than 6,000 people.