Tragedy of the lost children of COVID-19

They are the lost children of Covid. Bright teenagers are dropping out of education to turn to crime, sometimes to feed their families.

Bars open their doors on the final night in Liverpool, north west England on October 13 before new local lockdown measures are imposed to help stem a second wave.

They are the lost children of Covid. Bright teenagers are dropping out of education to turn to crime, sometimes to feed their families. Teachers spend weeks waiting for promising pupils to return, only to realise they are not coming back.

Other children are being removed from school for home education or long stays abroad for fear of the virus.

Sophie, 16, one of four children in a single-parent family, lives in Walker, one of the most deprived parts of Newcastle upon Tyne. The teenager, whose mother was a nurse before having a family, won a scholarship to start this term at the Royal Grammar School, one of the city’s private schools. She is determined to go to university and become a doctor, but some of her friends from local schools are dropping out.

Boys she grew up with, “lads who dabbled in drugs before the pandemic”, are not in school. Some are drug dealers. “Kids my age feel helpless,” Sophie said. “Some of my friends went for the induction day at sixth-form college last month and never returned. The college is trying its hardest to get them back into class, but they are just like, ‘Nah, that’s it.’”

She added: “A lot of people I went to school with have got sucked into drug-dealing. I know of kids who did it slightly before the pandemic; now it’s all they do. So many people have been made redundant ... their mums and dads ... their least worry is whether their kid finishes a business course at college; they [the parents] are trying to get their own lives back on track.”

According to official figures, more than 750,000 children were absent from school last week, giving an 89.9 per cent attendance rate, compared with 95 per cent last autumn. Children from the poorest families - those entitled to free school meals, like Sophie - are more likely than wealthier pupils to skip school.

Others, in homes without reliable broadband or laptops or a quiet room to study, have missed months of lessons and face trying to catch up enough to pass GCSEs and A-levels next summer.

A pedestrian wearing a face mask as a precaution against the transmission of the novel coronavirus walk pasts a derelict pub in Manchester, north west England on October 13.

“The danger is that we have a lost generation of children who are not only not able to keep up, but fall from sight with long-lasting consequences,” said Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner. She has identified a group of 120,000 teenagers missing from school who are at particular risk of getting drawn into “county lines” drug-dealing. “The tragedy would be if we look back in five years’ time and see a generation of children we just let slip from view.”

Roger Farley, head teacher at Westminster Primary Academy, in one of the poorest parts of Blackpool, has spent weeks phoning parents to try to find out why children have not returned to school. The number of families classed as vulnerable and referred to social services at the school has risen from 55 to 78 since March, and the number eligible for free meals has soared. Farley says the collapse of Blackpool’s tourist season might have pushed some families into crime.

“Twenty pupils over the past three months have vanished. We have put feelers out across Blackpool in case anyone has seen them,” he said. “Families can fall into drug-dealing or trade stolen goods. The crime rate is high in the town. I do think some families risked getting sucked into that in lockdown.”

Although Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, said that from September head teachers could use their powers to refer families for prosecution for non-attendance, few school leaders are willing to see parents being fined in a pandemic. Some are sympathetic to a common reason given by parents for keeping children at home: fear of Covid.

In Birmingham, Claire Evans, deputy head at Anderton Park Primary School, has also been searching for lost pupils. Some have been found abroad, where parents believe they are safer.

“Some of our families say they do not want to come back because our country is doing badly for Covid and they don’t think it is safe,” she said. “We have one child who has lost their father, a transport worker, to Covid and others who have lost grandparents.”

Birmingham city council has told schools not to fine parents whose children miss the first half of term but return for the second.

Some families are withdrawing their children and registering them as home-educated. Ofsted inspectors who went to 121 schools last month found that a third reported children being officially removed from school. In Blackpool, the number of homeschooled children of secondary school age has doubled from 40 last autumn to 80.

Helen Longton-Howorth, the head of a Brighton primary school, said that one of the families she was most worried about, on a low income, had decided to homeschool. “The really anxious parents are taking their kids out and home-educating them. I do worry what quality of homeschooling they will receive. Will they get any? And also the safeguarding aspect of it. These families will fall under the radar.”

Children who are back at school are starting to discuss their experiences in lockdown. One clue: the eating disorder charity Beat saw callers to its helpline almost double from March to August, up 97 per cent on the same period last year.

Caroline Price, director of services, said: “They are at absolute desperation, and because of their age, the younger demographic, they don’t have the skill-set yet, the resilience, knowing how to deal with what life throws at you.”

Centrepoint, which supports those aged 16 to 25 who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, has seen a 61 per cent surge in calls. A senior helpline manager, Paul Brocklehurst, said one young man had been told to give up his job or move out to protect his grandfather from the coronavirus. “The man had to decide: ‘Do I want a job or a home?’” said Brocklehurst.

Head teachers say children tend to be in fight-or-flight mode in class this term, and many find it hard to focus on academic work.

At the Oasis Trust, a group of 52 schools, Steve Chalke, the chief executive, is appointing a psychologist to a new post, clinical head of counselling, to train teachers to calm disturbed pupils.

“We are seeing real vulnerability among some children,” he said. “I talked to one lad in the sixth form of one of the schools. He said he feels afraid now, he has lost hope for his future, he feels scared, he feels anxious.

“He said all this in a trembling voice and that is typical. He lives in cramped housing and comes from a fractured family. He has not had the parental support he needs in lockdown to thrive. He is a really smart kid - he is doing three A- levels - but because of his emotional state he gets out of control in class.”

The boy has enough insight to understand his behaviour, but no power to control it. His future was at risk, Chalke said. “We are not just risking a lost generation. We are watching it happen.”

Head teachers are determined to keep their schools open despite rising infection rates to give these youngsters the best possible chance. In Blackpool, said Farley, his school would “be the last one to go down even if it is just me and my deputy left standing. We know how important it is for these youngsters.”

The children themselves are starting to speak out. Sophie is an ambassador for the charity Bite Back, which is supported by the television chef and campaigner Jamie Oliver. It wants the government to pay for school meals for children in families on low incomes in half-term and over Christmas.

“A million per cent we should have free school meal vouchers in the holidays. It should have been implemented already,” Sophie said.

With SHINGI MARARIKE and EMILY KENT SMITH

The Sunday Times