Students Felt ‘isolated from society’ During Pandemic, Inquiry Told; Schools Lost Track of ‘great many’ Young People During Pandemic, Inquiry Hears, and other C-Virus related stories

Students felt ‘isolated from society’ during pandemic, inquiry told:

University students felt “isolated from the rest of society” during the Covid-19 pandemic, an inquiry has heard.

Matthew Crilly, who was the National Union of Students of Scotland (NUSS) president from July 2020 to June 2022, said students also felt they were being seen as “the cause of the pandemic and the cause of the virus spreading”.

A panel of NUSS former presidents told the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry that students faced a “domino effect” of factors affecting their studies, including the move to remote learning, financial pressure, and the isolation and loneliness of being confined to student halls.

They added that not all students were affected in the same way or to the same extent, and there was a “disproportionate” impact on those from working class backgrounds or with caring responsibilities.

The inquiry is currently focusing on the impact on education, early years learning, and the experiences of children and young people up to the age of 24.

Mr Crilly said throughout the pandemic, students “were putting in a tremendous amount of work to complete their assessments that were given to them, their coursework, and they were doing it under the most incredible circumstances”.

The panel told the inquiry that many students struggled to access their education when university buildings closed and education moved online, particularly if they had been reliant on university facilities for laptops and suitable study space.

Mr Crilly said: “Some students did have access to laptops, and others just simply didn’t.

“We heard quite challenging stories of people with whole families locked down in homes, having to find a space and a corridor and join their class on their phone because they didn’t have exclusive use of a computer, and finding it really, really challenging in that way.” … READ MORE HERE

Schools lost track of ‘great many’ young people during pandemic, inquiry hears:

Schools did not know where “a great many” young people were or what they were doing during the Covid-19 pandemic, an inquiry has heard.

The Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry heard on Wednesday that children not attending school in person during the pandemic made it much harder for teachers and other staff to perform their “social care” role, in which they identified pupils experiencing problems outside school and put support in place.

Graham Hutton, general secretary of School Leaders Scotland (SLS), told the inquiry: “One of the advantages of the school was that young people came to school, they were in the building.”

He continued: “Hence, there was a point of contact there. If there was a concern, then case meetings would be set up, parental visits would take place, various other agencies would be contacted, and we would start to look at working around the child.

“That work started to fall away as soon as you could not get physical contact with people who were out there.”

Jim Thewliss, retired SLS general secretary, echoed this, saying that if they were not at school then young people were out in the community where they might be experiencing problems.

He said: “If they were in school for five-and-a-half hours a day, we knew where they were, and we knew what to do, and we knew that we could support them.

“It became a huge, huge challenge, and we didn’t know for a great many young people where they were and what they were doing.”

Mr Hutton also described a number of ongoing negative effects of the pandemic on families, in relation to the behaviour and attendance of young people, and a decline in parental engagement with schools.

He explained some young people had stopped attending school altogether, or were “truanting within the school” by refusing to go to classes and going round the building and disrupting lessons. —>READ MORE HERE

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