Provision of education in response to COVID-19: children's rights impact assessment

How will the proposal affect the lives of children, positively and negatively?

The policy decisions set out in Section 1, will all impact on children and young people and these have been detailed in Sections 1 to 5 of this IIA, including the accompanying mitigating actions we have sought to put in place. 

However, in summary these impacts are likely to be:

Disruption to learning

With the Easter holidays being brought forward, schools repurposed and therefore closed to the majority of learners and the introduction of distance learning. For all learners, regardless of their circumstances, it is likely to take some time to acclimatise to these circumstances and both the Continuity of Learning programme and the provision in repurposed schools is not intended to replicate the education that would ordinarily be provided in schools. Many schools will have already been engaged in transition planning and activities for year 6 learners moving into secondary provision next year advance of lockdown measures.

Potential negative impact on learners’ health and wellbeing

Not being in school can impact routine and social interaction which can increase feelings of loneliness and mental health issues, not being in school can have a detrimental impact on children’s nutrition and levels of physical activity, there may also be increased anxiety due to the nature of the pandemic and concern about family and friends. Many learners will have experienced a degree of trauma as a result of not being in school. Lack of play can also impact on emotional health and development. While learning impacts for those in transition years are unlikely to be significant for most learners, the well-being implications for those moving from one setting to another, possibly without the opportunity of saying goodbye have been noted.

Cultural wellbeing

Negative impact on cultural well-being, with reduced opportunities to participate in cultural activities, arts, sports and recreation. For those in non-Welsh speaking households, there are greater challenges in Welsh language development.

Wellbeing due to home environment

For some learners, not being in the school environment can be particularly detrimental. This could be due to their home environment: 

• alcohol or drug problems
• abusive relationships
• lack of tolerance of a learners’ religion, gender or sexual orientation
• greater risk of online exploitation

or because the learner needs additional support for their learning or well-being that is provided through schools, for example additional learning support, specialist equipment, counselling services. Some learners will also be affected by not having the school routine and losing the certainty about when or how things will happen during the day, as well as not seeing teachers and support staff they have formed attachments to. This may have a greater impact on those learners with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, affected by trauma or who struggle to regulate.

Future progression opportunities

The cancellation of exams has caused anxiety amongst many learners, in terms of potential impact on their future progression opportunities, the estimation of grades and whether this will be an accurate and fair reflection of their likely performance had they taken exams, and the impact of the disruption on those due to take their exams in 2021.

Effect on private candidates

There will be an additional impact for some learners who are private candidates, which can include those who are being home educated, those undertaking distance learning (for example more mature learners or those preparing for re-sits) and some who receive private tutoring provided by local authorities (some EOTAS or PRUs for example), as where an exam centre does not have sufficient information about a learner to make a judgement it might not be possible for them to receive an estimated grade.

Whilst it is recognised that the majority of these impacts are likely to negatively affect learners, there are also some potential positive impacts during this period of restriction where schools and settings are closed to the majority of learners. Not being in school or another educational setting has been a positive experience for some learners and we are aware, for example, of learners re-engaging with their learning in this new way of working.

 Other potential benefits may include:

• extra time to spend with their close family, including families re- connecting after having spent more time together
• more time to focus on hobbies, interests and play
• feeling more secure in their foster placements
• reduction in anxiety if they were bullied at school
• reduction in anxiety due to not having to take exams in the summer

It will be important to capture and build on these positive stories.

In terms of the decision to pause work on the home education proposals, whilst mindful of the impact of this decision on home educating children, local authorities are already under a duty to identify children in their area not receiving a suitable education. The proposals for the statutory guidance and the database regulations were to reinforce and assist local authorities to comply with that current duty. Their responsibilities in terms of children receiving a suitable education, regardless of where that is delivered, remains current

How will the proposal affect different groups of children (e.g. children who have experienced adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), children living in poverty, children with a disability, children living in Welsh speaking households and children in Welsh medium education etc.)

The policy decisions set out in Section 1 will have an adverse impact on all groups of children and young people as discussed in Sections 1 to 5. However, some of these impacts are likely to disproportionately affect specific groups of learners:

Repurposing of schools

• Vulnerable and disadvantaged learners, including those receiving free school meals, who have English or Welsh as an additional language and those from Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities, who tend to have fewer educational opportunities beyond school. Their parents may be less likely to be prepared for distance learning, particularly where they have a limited education and resources themselves.
• There may be a lack of capacity to participate in distance learning due to a lack of digital access, no computers, internet access issues etc. A report by the Sutton Trust found that in the most deprived schools, 15% of teachers reported that more than a third of their students would not have adequate access to an electronic device for learning from home, compared to only 2% in the most affluent state schools. A number of studies show that those learners without home internet access are at an educational disadvantage. Digital access is important for well-being and mental health also, as the need for physical isolation pushes social activities online.
• Before the current crisis, there was already a notable attainment gap between the poorest and richest learners, with those from disadvantaged backgrounds already twice as likely to leave formal education without GCSEs in English and Maths compared to their better-off classmates.
• Time away from school therefore risks further widening this attainment gap, with an extensive body of research showing that poorer students fall further behind during breaks from school, such as the summer holidays. The impact on the wider outcomes of these learners are also likely to be greater than their peers, who will likely receive more support at home with their development and learning, and also potentially have higher levels of well-being due to their circumstances at home.

For the 24,000 vulnerable children in Wales, this period brings fresh uncertainty. They are likely to be more affected by the gap in learning and potential inequality in support at home and could be further disadvantaged if, for example, their foster or ‘kinship’ carers or staff at children’s homes become ill. Similarly, for young carers, there may be difficulties in balancing continued learning from home with caring for family members.

Vulnerable and disadvantaged learners may have been receiving additional support in school. This might have included, for example, school counselling, THRIVE, emotion coaching, Lego Therapy, use of specialist equipment or even one-to-one support. Whilst we would expect this to have continued at a distance to some degree; inevitably the same support in the same way is unlikely to be possible on a distance basis.

This may have had a negative impact on the learning and well-being of these learners; however, the long term impact should be mitigated by support put in place as we move into the next phase for the education system.

In addition, for some vulnerable children, teachers were the professionals having the most regular contact with children and through daily contact they were in a position to identify children at risk and make referrals to other agencies. For some children the lack of contact with teachers could delay the identification of risk. However, to mitigate this before schools were repurposed they were asked to identify, and keep in regular contact with, their most vulnerable children including those not known to services. In addition children’s services rag rated all children with a social worker to assess the level of contact and support needed. The monitoring and review of vulnerable children has continued throughout this period.

The additional costs on families from wider changes due to the lockdown have resulted in a large increase in the number of families receiving universal credit (UC). Many of these are likely to experience a significant drop in income, the rising unemployment more generally risks a higher incidence of indebtedness, destitution and child poverty.

There are also less easily quantifiable risks as not all children living in poverty ‘qualify’ for free school meals, and so slip through the cracks of the additional support offered so far, such as food vouchers.

The closure of schools to the majority of learners also means that vulnerable and disadvantaged learners will be home more often and more exposed to resultant stresses, which may include:

Learners with additional learning needs

Staying at home can be more disruptive to the lives and routines of learners with additional educational needs and disabilities, particularly due to their specialist educational needs. The impact is also likely to be more significant on their families and carers, as the respite care and facilities they depend on are unavailable or their provision severely limited.

Ethnic minority learners

Ethnic minority learners, particularly those with English or Welsh as an additional language may be disproportionately impacted, similar to the issues noted for Welsh medium pupils (below), due a limitation to parental support for continued learning at home where the parents do not speak English or Welsh.

Welsh medium learners

There may be fewer resources available to support continued learning through the medium of Welsh. For example, online lessons for English-medium learners are readily available, but the range for Welsh medium learners may be more restricted with fewer options or variety available to ensure learner engagement. There is therefore a risk that Welsh-medium schools could find re-engaging learners after the period of remote learning more challenging than their counterparts in English-medium schools and this may affect future GCSE results in Wales. There may also be a limitation to parental support to enable continued learning at home for Welsh medium-learners with non-Welsh speaking parents. This could exacerbate the impacts above and lead to Welsh-medium learners struggling more than their English medium counterparts.

What evidence have you used to inform your assessment, including evidence from children or their representatives?

A range of information has been used to inform this assessment, including:

• scientific and health advice from COBR and SAGE, as well as information and advice from Public Health Wales
• data collected and published by the Welsh Government and its key partners
• previous research that can be used to draw conclusions from
• discussions with practitioners and other representatives, who can provide feedback from learners’ perspectives
• feedback on issues being raised with the Children’s Commissioner, the Future Generations’ Commissioner and the Welsh Language Commissioner
• the outcome of consultations undertaken by key stakeholders on these policy decisions, for example Qualifications Wales’ consultation on principles for calculating grades which also included a children and young person’s version
• daily social listening reports that have highlighted the key trends on social media and summaries of the key issues being raised through correspondence, the First Point of Contact Centre and the Complaints Unit at Welsh Government
• the experience and actions of other countries some of whom are at a more advanced stage of the pandemic response or who have taken different policy choices
• feedback from key stakeholders and representative bodies, including those working on the education front-line
• a range of publicly available national and international research reports and information on impacts of COVID-19 and similar pandemics

Information from children and young people has been collected from a range of channels and where possible this has fed into this IIA, this includes:

• the daily social listening reports that are compiled
• the Minister for Education undertaking Q&As on social media with young people
• the Minister for Education attending the Youth Parliament
• the response to video messages aimed at certain groups of learners or their parents
• daily monitoring of the topics raised in correspondence, enquiries to the First Point of Contact centre or to the Complaints Unit, these have also been used to refine and update the Frequently Asked Questions section of the Welsh Government’s Coronavirus website

How have you consulted with children and young people? If you haven’t, please explain why.

Due to the unprecedented nature of the public health emergency being faced and the speed within which some of the initial policy decisions had to be taken and subsequently implemented, it was not possible to consult with children and young people prior to these decisions being taken.

Recognising this we have taken steps to help provide learners an opportunity to express their views on how they have been impacted by these decisions, this information will be used to help us to consider whether any further mitigating action is required and to provide an evidence base for further policy decisions, particularly those about planning for recovery.

In a joint project with the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Children in Wales and with the support of the Youth Parliament, the Welsh Government launched an online consultation survey to give an opportunity for learners to tell us their opinions about COVID-19. The survey provided a snapshot of the opinions of children and young people during a two week window in May. The survey received over 23,000 responses and gives us the opinions of children and young people on a range of issues including schools being closed and examinations cancelled. As respondents to the survey were self-selecting, the results may not be representative, but care has been taken to seek input from a wide range of ages and different groups of children.

Based on the Articles within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the survey was designed in partnership with children and young people. The survey sought to:

• demonstrate the Welsh Government’s commitment to upholding children’s rights
• facilitate children’s opinions being heard at the heart of Government
• provide links to sources of reliable information
• provide advice on support available for children and young people

The Welsh Government will also use the survey findings to ensure children’s rights and opinions are reflected upon during and after the COVID-19 crisis.

With regard to decisions made in order to ensure the continued provision of free school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic, children and young people were not consulted. Many children, particularly younger children, are unaware that they are in receipt of free school meals and identifying them as such can cause distress and increase stigma. The Healthy Eating in Schools (Wales) Measure 2009 places a duty on schools and local authorities to protect the identities of learners in receipt of free school meals. This makes consultation with those affected particularly difficult and risks breaking the law.

What other evidence would inform the assessment?

The Welsh Government is initiating and drawing upon a range of research and surveys to monitor impacts on learners and their families, these are detailed in full in Section 7.4, and include:

• a rapid evidence reviews of UK and international research focusing on the impacts of crises on learner mental health and wellbeing, and approaches to supporting recovery. Further reviews are planned, which will support the development of the Continuity of Learning plan
• exploratory analysis of participation in remote learning, via analysis of log-on activity data
• planning support for a suite of research activities to be carried out by higher education institutions and school practitioners on the impact of the pandemic. This work will focus on future initial teacher education and upon provision in groups of schools
• considering options for commissioning a survey of school practitioners to enable us to understand in more detail their experiences of providing schooling, via different mechanisms, to pupils, to understand what has been more or less effective and why, as well as the impacts on staff workload and wellbeing
• including monthly-reviewed questions in the National Survey for Wales about families’ experiences of schooling
• re-configuring activity already in train before the crisis, to capture its impacts, including:
  • evaluation of the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) pilot in-reach programme
  • review of school and community counselling and piloting roll out of services to younger pupils
  • research to support development of implementation plans for the Youth work strategy

Below is a table of the UNCRC articles that are considered the most relevant to policies set out in Article 1.