Posted on: 28/05/2020
When it is safe for most children to return to school, we know we won’t be able to pick up where we left off. Things have changed. Schools won’t straight away look, or feel, or be the places they once were. Children won’t be able to hug, touch or even be closer then a couple of metres from each other; social distancing measures will be in place; some people may be in PPE. Aside from this, the most profound change will be a less visible one. The children entering our schools will have experienced a tangible and intense change caused by the coronavirus and all that goes with it. We know we must acknowledge this, before can begin to think about any potential gaps in learning that might have taken hold in the ten plus weeks since school closures and lockdown began.
Many children, through no fault of their own, will have fallen out of routines altogether. Whilst the advice has been to home-school, maintain a sense of regularity and rhythm to the day, we know that not all children will have had this privilege. Some children will have barely been outside of their four walls since the beginning of spring and others will have had very limited interaction with adults or other children.
We know from other crises where longer-term school closures have played a part that children can suffer severely from an interruption to their schooling. Children of five years and under will often bear the brunt with potential delays to speech and development of emotional maturity. But there will be much more subtle, less measurable impacts that we ignore at our peril: relationships (many will have been split from friendship groups or won't be with their regular teacher); trust (severe change in their lives could cause trust to be eroded with those who usually provide consistency); anxiety (around whether this will happen again or if their family or friends will become ill; some will suffer separation anxiety after such a long period with parents/carers); and loss (many children will have had direct experience of loss and associated grief during this pandemic; most will have been at least indirectly affected).
So, how do we address these issues, whilst rapidly and effectively returning children to a sense of something resembling normality and at the same time acknowledging gaps in learning as we move forward into a ‘new normal’. These are big questions and there will be no single answer: no ‘one-size-fits-all’ response. Many schools will want to avoid ripping up their curriculum in favour of developing a bespoke ‘recovery’ response. Some will want to adapt theirs in real-time, reacting to the needs of children as and when they arise whilst ensuring a sense of rhythm and routine to daily life – restoring something as close to normality as possible. Others will want to provide something tangibly restorative that brings the school community back together through collaboration and conversation.
Whichever approach will work in your setting, we know that Literature can be the starting point for beginning to understand, unpick and eventually heal the damage that this trauma has inflicted, beyond just being a vital part of the English curriculum.
Many schools will be thinking about adopting a whole-school text. This approach is known to be successful and something we have long-advocated after breaks in the schooling (whatever the reason might have been). It can support the restoration of well-being, help rebuild confidence, resilience and self-esteem as well as offering an opportunity for self-expression and creative writing. The collaboration that can come through setting out on a journey through a book in which everyone is involved can help to bind communities together and mend scars. Each year group or phase taking on a different aspect of a story or taking their own direction and creating individual outcomes can pay dividends: everyone has a buy-in; everyone can take part in the same conversations; everyone becomes both the author and audience.
Other settings will want to maintain a pre-existing book-based curriculum but perhaps adjusting the chosen text or adapting the writing opportunities to ensure children have opportunities to reflect on feelings, discuss how lockdown has impacted on them and write authentically about their experiences.
In both instances, text-choice is key. The right book will help connect individuals; it will answer ‘bigger’ questions about the world in which we live; it will help us to heal. Book choices don’t need to cover issues literally to be effective. Often, the best books are those that reflect our realities through metaphor, imagery and themes that resonate through all our experiences. We would recommend books that deal with universalities here, such as isolation, independence, resilience, relationships, anxiety, trust and loss.
Halibut Jackson’s protagonist is an introverted costume designer who creates outfits to help him blend in. Upon receiving an invitation to a royal event, he could have never predicted that the suit he creates wouldn’t help him disappear at a garden party! David Lucas helps children to deal with themes of independence, resilience and isolation through his illustrations and words. This book is great to support children to return to society after an extended period on their own and a personal favourite of ours to use in EYFS.
The Bear Under the Stairs and Black Dog are both wonderful texts that deal with the anxiety caused by an unknown, looming threat and how, as humans, worry and stress can build up and overflow into something unwanted and unpleasant; how they can grow and morph into something different. The former is a shadowy threat that hides under the stairs and literally needs ‘feeding’, the latter is a menace that forces a family inside their home until someone small and brave overcomes it. Both these books will be great for children experiencing the anxiety of an intangible enemy.
The Heart and the Bottle deals more directly with the themes of loss and grief as the central character places her heart in a ‘safe place’ to stop it ever being broken again. The metaphor here is the act of bottling up feelings, so even if children aren’t experiencing grief directly, it’s a great place to spark conversations about emotions and the need to express them. If All the World Wereis another favourite for dealing with the loss of a loved one.
The Selfish Giant explores a character who is isolated and alone and how friendship and play can help him ‘blossom’ and both literally and figuratively break down walls. This is ideal in a situation where children are moving out of a period of isolation back into society and helps address this transition and that it is not always an easy shift.
The Lost Thing, Lost and Found and Tadpole’s Promise all deal with unusual relationships and the long-lasting bonds we form throughout our lives. Children will have potentially had to form relationships or adapt existing relationships during this period and will have to actively work at restoring them, or creating new ones when they return to school, so literature of this sort is a great way to explore such issues. The latter, Tadpole’s Promise, also deals with the theme of change (the tadpole and its beau, the caterpillar, both inevitably change and adapt and this will help open up conversations about how we may not be the same people we were before lockdown).
The Legend of Sally Jones, the incredible story of an ape from birth to adulthood and the many adventures, experiences and relationships she forms along the way is perfect for exploring the concept of trust as the protagonist is so often let down through her relationships with humans, but doesn’t ever lose hope or the ability to trust. This book is perfect for opening up dialogue about trust as we return to pre-existing relationships in school or, potentially, have to adapt to new teachers in our lives.
The Arrival deals with themes of isolation (from family) and isolation within a community, as many of Shaun Tan’s stories do, reflecting his own feelings of personal isolation growing up in Perth, Australia. The central protagonist’s struggles to adapt to a new way of living and separation from loved ones provides an opportunity to open up dialogue about our own feelings of loneliness and the peculiarities of adapting to a new normal.
These are just some of the many books we know work as ‘teaching texts’, many of which would be used as whole-school books or within and across phases or key-stages and we would not shy away from discussion and writing opportunities based upon the complex themes explored. We have also put together a list of books that we know work explicitly as ‘whole-school’ texts.
Another great ‘recovery’ attribute of a literature-led approach is the ability to creatively embed grammar, spelling and comprehension skills (the often ‘trickier’ aspects of the English curriculum to teach) into a coherent series of sessions that make way for purposeful and authentic application. Where key skills have been missed through this period of absence, there is now a way to embed them often by ‘stealth’ within a text-based approach that does so much more than just address children’s feelings and anxieties about their return to school. It allows us to ensure children are exposed to key skills through engagement in subject matter, themes and characters. It allows us to make links within and across the curriculum and reopen children’s worlds through exploration of others’.
We have long said that literature gives children a window to the world and holds up a mirror to their own and at no time has this been more pertinent or resonated more strongly. No two children’s experiences of this period will have been the same and, in turn, no two approaches to recovery can be identical. However, through literature and the ‘safe’ exploration of emotions and experiences we can hopefully support children to find their way through this period as we all adjust to a new normal.
Posted in: Curriculum | Home Learning
