Children represent our future and school is an important milestone.
School restrictions will be dropped by autumn, this is the recent new by the England’s children commissioner. Currently, children have to self isolate for 10 days if they come into contact with an individual which tested positive. As a result in England 239.000 children have missed classes.
This young category of the population is the least affected by the virus but still they need to quarantine to safeguard us “older” ones. But they have all taken a big burden for us. Is estimated that the average loss is of 19 weeks of school, with multiple times seeing exams cancelled. This is why now there is a strong willingness to drop school restrictions by autumn.
Children represent our future and school is an important milestone. The school is a place where pupils also learn to relate with people, to play, to behave in a group; and doing it at home with distance learning is totally not the same. They have seen their normal childhood disrupted in order to protect older people, and now are struggling with their mental health.
Is not surprisingly that half of the youth population, due to covid restrictions, now is feeling less motivate to do activities they previously enjoyed. In addition, 73% needed to ask help for mental health issues. In older classes, such as high school and universities, drop rates have increased drastically. All these data are not reassuring this is why despite the upcoming Delta variant, England take stances on school return. The experience of a lockdown is a real trauma, even more for such young kids which are not fully able of understanding what’s happening. Furthermore, the continuous in-school-out-school is a disruptive cycle. It raises uncertainty in live, making pupil think that they cannot make future plans or think ahead.
This is why now is time for school restrictions to be dropped.