“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire."

-William Butler Yeats

As the pandemic continues on, governments around the world are continuing to try to curb the spread of Covid-19. While there has been some great news in the past week about vaccine efficacy, actual inoculation of the population is months away. Currently different attempts are being made around the world to slow the spread, some countries are in total lockdown while others have just heightened restrictions. In the UK a ‘lockdown’ of sorts has been enacted across each country at some point in time - and while these lockdowns have differed in their tightness of restrictions, one common feature has been across all: schools have remained open, The reasoning for keeping educational institutions open during these lockdowns is quite understandable, especially after what we have learned from the lockdowns in the spring which had closed schools. But still, it is an important question to ask those who are actually going into schools what they are thinking. It is important to urge young people to discuss what they think about schools being open in a lockdown, because they are the ones being directly affected by this policy. So our amazing member schools across the nation asked their students this Symphony Question to foster meaningful discussion within their classrooms and school community.

After, what we are sure were great discussions with various types of reasoning for their answers, this is what young people had to say about schools remaining open….

Question: Should schools remain open during a lockdown?

National result:

Result: Students are wary about being back.

The results of this question are more mixed than previous questions - with there being split support for both the opening and closing of schools. Overall, though, 58% of students expressed that schools should not remain open.

There reasoning for this was split - with 32% saying that the reasons schools should be closed is being it causes the virus to spread, and 26% saying that home learning is the way to go.

Those expressing that schools should remain open, 25% reasoned with the importance of education and only 16% said they should be open because of the decreased amount of risk children have with the virus.

What can we learn from these results?

Pupils aren’t completely sold on being back in the classroom.

While we are sure there are various reasons that pupils expressed the above opinions, these results speak to how young people feel about being back in schools, even while the rest of the country is being urged to stay at home. They’re aware of the spread of virus and how it can happen in a school setting, and while the precautions are being taken in school they’re wary of the exposure risks.

Starting a discussion with young people about how they feel in school during the current climate is extremely important. Allowing them to formulate their thoughts and hear others’ directly affects their wellbeing. We’re so proud of our member schools who are continuing to foster an environment to have these discussion and giving encouragement to all pupils to use their voice.

Who is your 2020 hero and why?

Next week we’re asking young people across the nation who their 2020 hero is and why. 2020 has been a very tough year, but there have been lots of people across the world who have stood up and done some heroic things.

We look forward to seeing what the results will be next week with this question, as we are sure students have some great ideas on who the heroes of this year really are.

Following the successful trial of this form in our General Election Question Series, for 2020 we’ll be recommending a blend of action-led & topical questions to ask each week.

Want to get involved or suggest a question? Send us an email at membership@smartschoolcouncils.org.uk