Think Piece

A Recovery Curriculum: Loss and Life for our children and schools post pandemic.

Barry Carpenter, CBE, Professor of Mental Health in Education, Oxford Brookes University.
Matthew Carpenter, Principal, Baxter College, Kidderminster, Worcestershire.

“When will they actually go back to school?” This is the cry from many parents, as we write and
there is no answer. But that does not stop us thinking about what it will be like for each and
every one of our children, at whatever age, stage or ability level on the day they walk through
the classroom door.

It would be naive of any Headteacher/Principal to think that the child will pick up the Curriculum
at exactly the same point at which they left it on the day their school closed. Too much has
happened. Listen to what the children are saying. Look at what the children are experiencing.
None of this follows the usual pattern of a school year with all of the annual cycle of events. It
feels like a period of true social disorder. Compassionate Leadership is crucial at this time.

When the children return to school there needs to be a Recovery Curriculum in place. Suddenly
daily routines have evaporated and with it, any known curriculum framework. No more rushing
to get the school bag ready and running out of the door to begin the journey to school. For most
children their daily goal in going to school is not just to learn but to see their friends and to feel a
sense of self-worth that only a peer group can offer. You cannot underestimate the impact of
the loss of that social interaction. It is as key to their holistic development as any lesson. Human
beings are fundamentally social creatures, and the brain grows in the context meaningful human
to human interaction. What will the children be making of this period of non-attendance? What
worries will they have because grown-ups have now stopped them going to school indefinitely?

For many children the loss of structure will be devastating. This is why parents have been
encouraged to establish clear routines in home schooling their children. Children need to know
what they are doing now and what will come next. If they don’t, the child will become anxious
and concentration levels drop; they become frustrated with themselves, and their parents as
makeshift educator.

For some, the loss of freedom is constraining. What teenager wants to be with their parents 24
hours a day? Frankly they are not cool! Their whole self-image, self-esteem, and self-concept, is
located in the interaction and dynamics of a peer group. They cannot test their emerging self,
against the rules and routines of family life and to be taught by a parent who clearly knows
nothing, (what teen acknowledges parental skills?) is to them an insult!

The common thread that runs through the current lived experiences of our children, is loss.
Publicly it has been the loss of national examinations which has been most obvious. As one
student said, "I was preparing to run a marathon, but now they tell me there is no race!” Many
would think that the removal of examinations would be a matter of joy for most young people
facing a gruelling timetable of examinations. But these are rites of passage; they are integral to
how that young person shapes their ambitions for their life. What impact will it have on students
to give their all to examinations next time around?

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From loss emanates three significant dynamics that will impact majorly on the mental health of
our children. Anxiety, trauma and bereavement are powerful forces. For them all to appear at
once in an untimely and unplanned fashion is significant for the developing child. Our children
are vulnerable at this time, and their mental-health fragile. And on top of that, they are
witnessing a sea of adult anxiety, which they unwittingly are absorbing. There will be many
students who are young carers, and this loss of freedom will be combined with a weight of
responsibility that will have made academic learning feel inconsequential.

The loss of friendship and social interaction could trigger a bereavement response in some of our
children. They will grieve for that group of peers, who not only give them angst, but also affirm
them as the person they want to be. The rules of the peer group have vanished without warning,
and our young people in particular, were ill prepared for this. They will mourn for how their life
was compared to how it is now. They have undergone a period where friends and family
members have been avoided because they are a threat; how long will it take for children to feel
not threatened by nearness of others?

The loss of routine and structure, will be traumatic for some. Already we are receiving reports of
the increased incidents of self-harm, (Young Minds, 2020). Children can find it alarming that the
infrastructure of their week has been abandoned however logical the reason. The suddenness of
it all may induce panic attacks, a loss of self-control, as the child feels their own intellect no
longer informs their personal judgements accurately.

Anxiety is a cruel companion. It eats away at the positive mental health of the child, and can
cause a deterioration in their overall well-being. The anxious child is not a learning child. Mood
swings may prevail; they can become irrational and illogical. There can be a loss of sleep; the
cumulative tiredness can diminish the child's coping mechanisms.

Daily, children are listening to reports of the spread of the pandemic and to the reported death
toll in their country and internationally. It is probable that most children may return to school
knowing of someone who has died. Indeed, they may have first-hand experience of the death of
a loved one. In this respect, we have much to learn from the experiences of those children
affected by the earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand. Schools there, kept a register of the
deaths within a family, or other significant traumatic events, to guide and inform staff as children
returned. Subsequent evidence from research studies from NZ, (Liberty, 2018) have shown that
there has been considerable impact on the learning and development of those children who
were under 5 years old at the time of the earthquakes, (eg speech delays, emotional immaturity,
etc). We ignore such related evidence at our peril.

Those 5 losses, of routine, structure, friendship, opportunity and freedom, can trigger the
emergence emotionally of anxiety, trauma and bereavement in any child. The overall impact
cannot be underestimated. It will cause a rapid erosion of the mental health state in our children.

How are schools to prepare? What curriculum adjustments are crucial? What pedagogical
frameworks will facilitate teaching with compassion? How will staff manage their own recovery?
We inevitably have a finite resource and we must consider the gradual implementation of any
form of curriculum to recover from loss. All of our learners will need a holistic recovery, some
may need a focused recovery intervention programme, personalised to their needs; others may
need a deeper and longer lasting recovery period, enabling a fuller exploration of the severity of
their trauma and emergent attachment issues .

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Teaching is a relationship-based profession. That has been clearly demonstrated in the response
of the teaching profession, supporting children through online teaching during the crisis, and also
caring for the children of key workers by keeping schools open and offering an activities
programme. This was not without its inherent risk.

In response to the weight of loss our young people will have experienced, what are our levers of
recovery? Many of us will focus on the recovery of lost knowledge, but this does not recognise
the scale of impact. If we consider the definition of a relevant curriculum as the ‘daily lived
experience’ we must plan for experiences that provide the space for recovery. Already
Headteachers are saying “The children will be so far behind academically when they return.”
Such statements are incompatible with the process of recovery from loss, trauma, anxiety and
grief. It is more about the results culture so many Headteachers are steeped in. Now is the time
to return to more humane approaches concerned with the fundamental wellbeing, and secure
positive development of the child. Without this there will be no results that have true meaning
and deep personal value to the child in terms of their preparation for adulthood.

Lever 1: Relationships - we can’t expect our students to return joyfully, and many of the
relationships that were thriving, may need to be invested in and restored. We need to plan for
this to happen, not assume that it will. Reach out to greet them, use the relationships we build to
cushion the discomfort of returning.

Lever 2: Community - we must recognise that curriculum will have been based in the community
for a long period of time. We need to listen to what has happened in this time, understand the
needs of our community and engage them in the transitioning of learning back into school.

Lever 3: Transparent Curriculum - all of our students will feel like they have lost time in learning
and we must show them how we are addressing these gaps, consulting and co-constructing with
our students to heal this sense of loss.

Lever 4: Metacognition - in different environments, students will have been learning in different
ways. It is vital that we make the skills for learning in a school environment explicit to our
students to reskill and rebuild their confidence as learners.

Lever 5: Space - to be, to rediscover self, and to find their voice on learning in this issue. It is only
natural that we all work at an incredible pace to make sure this group of learners are not
disadvantaged against their peers, providing opportunity and exploration alongside the intensity
of our expectations.

We suggest the Recovery Curriculum is built on the 5 Levers, as a systematic, relationships-based

approach to reigniting the flame of learning in each child. Many children will return to school
disengaged. School may seem irrelevant after a long period of isolation, living with a background
of silent fear, always wondering if the day will come when the silence speaks and your life is
changed forever. Our quest, our mission as educators, should be to journey with that child
through a process of re-engagement, which leads them back to their rightful status as a fully
engaged, authentic learner.

What must be going though children’s minds at this strange time? Is school to be always
transitory, when for you as a child, it has always been a constant, love it or hate it? Can I trust

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you again, as my teacher, to not abandon me? We were walking a path together, and then this
‘thing’, this virus, sent us on different journeys. Can our lives reconnect? Can our relationship be
re-established? School is no longer the safe, constant place we thought it was. We must be
ready to understand, to reframe their perceptions, and show that we are trustworthy.

The Recovery Curriculum is an essential construct for our thinking and our planning. Each school
must fill it with the content they believe is best for the children of their school community,
informed by your inherent understanding of your children in your community. What were the
aims and values of your school before this pandemic? Use them now to guide your judgements,
to build a personalised response to the child who has experienced loss. No Government can give
you the guidelines for that. It is down to you, as that skilled, intuitive teacher, who can lift the
mask of fear and disenfranchisement from the child. You can engage that child as a learner once
more, for engagement is the liberation of intrinsic motivation, (Carpenter et al, 2015).

The Loss the children experienced during this pandemic will have caused issues around
attachment - in their relationships in school that they have forged over years; these will be some
of the strongest relationships the young people have, but bereft of the investment of those daily
interactions, will have become fragile. Our unwritten relationships curriculum must restore the
damage of neglect; it must be a Curriculum of Recovery. Now is the time to address the damage
of loss and trauma, so that it does not rob our children of their lifelong opportunities. Now is the
time to ensure that we restore mental wealth in our children, so that their aspirations for their
future, can be a vision that becomes, one day, a reality.

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References:
Carpenter, B. et al (2015) ‘Engaging Learners with Complex Needs’, London, Routledge.

Liberty, K., (2018) ‘How research is helping our children after the earthquakes.’
https://www.healthprecinct.org.nz/stories/how-research-is-helping-our-children-after-the-
earthquakes/ (accessed 14th April, 2020.)

Young Minds (2020) Coronavirus; the impact on young people with mental health needs.
www.youngminds.org.uk

© Barry Carpenter, CBE, Professor of Mental Health in Education, Oxford Brookes University.
Matthew Carpenter, Principal, Baxter College, Kidderminster, Worcestershire. 23rd April 2020

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