“School is a building which has four walls with tomorrow inside.”

-Lon Watters

Even before schools had resumed in-person learning again, there was a BIG question being asked about how to ‘catch-up.’ With this school year, and the previous, being so disrupted by the pandemic - there’s a general concern about learning loss in pupils. From having schools shut and transitioning to home learning, to classes being told to isolate at different points during the past term, the normal course of learning has been, well, anything but normal. National discussions have emerged on how to address this, with the word ‘catch-up’ being thrown around.

Now while we will leave setting the curriculum to the powers that be - we wanted to give our member schools the opportunity to allow their pupils to feedback, and engage in discussions, about the subjects they feel they’re most behind in. Lots of times when it comes to discussions on ‘what can be done to/for pupils’ they tend to not include student voices at all. Which is why we proposed a Symphony Question to allow for that space for young people to guide those discussion, while also reflecting on their own education experience during such a turbulent time.

Question: What subject do you feel you need to 'catch-up' most in?

National result:

Result:

With the options suggested by our team, the subject students felt they need to ‘catch-up’ most in was science, followed closely by maths. But it’s hard to say that there was a clear winner, or even that there should be a winner, from this question. Responses varied widely by school, with some of our member schools incorporating extra options into their own Class Meetings - like PE or PSHE. Seeing the wide range of options brought forward by schools was really great, and seeing the responses from their pupils was even better.

What can we learn from these results?

When it comes to these results, it’s difficult to make any big conclusions. It was clear from the different options that each member school put in that there were particular needs for each school. And hopefully the schools that did hold these Class Meetings use their results, and the discussion that they generated, to inform how they respond to students needs over the rest of the school year.

What’s next?

We’ve got our next Symphony Question set: Which of these words best describes your return to school?

It’ll be our last Symphony Question of Spring Term - but we will return with the series after the Easter Holidays.

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