Road to Recovery
How can music help our pupils move on from the pandemic?
There has been a lot of noise this academic year about ‘lost learning.’ Early studies of the pandemic’s impact in England have shown that the average child was about 2 months ‘behind’ where they should be by Christmas 2020. The latest school closures in England, currently due to end on 8th March, will almost certainly have added to this, and there is likely to be renewed pressure to focus on the ‘core’ subjects when schools return. However, before we take a knee-jerk reaction into cramming our timetables with extra English and Maths, perhaps we need to take a step back and consider a few things. Firstly, and rather philosophically, if all our children are ‘behind’ en masse, then surely that means none of them are on target, or ahead? Which means that no-one is ‘behind’ anyone? What learners are ‘behind’ is the curriculum, in that they have not covered the content they would ordinarily have done by this point in time. And the curriculum can be re-written to compensate for this. So what if this year’s curriculum looks different from last years? A curriculum should be a fluid, living document, that changes frequently to reflect new developments.
