Teachers concerned over ‘massively detrimental’ effects of covid on students’ behaviour

Primary school teachers are noticing gaps in their students’ behaviour, relationships and maturity, which they say is due to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Research by The Education Review Office showed that in 2023, 41 per cent of principals felt behaviour is worse than what they would expect for the beginning of the year.

Primary school teacher Elijah Carr says the long-term behavioural effects from Covid are still especially prevalent in younger students.

“I think covid was massively detrimental. Kids are now socially two years behind - and in terms of maturity, they're two years behind as well.

“We can see through data that kids are lower academically, but it isn’t until being around them that you gauge that they’re just acting younger - like in the playground they just can’t regulate their emotions the same way.”

Primary school teacher William Miller also says there is a huge behavioural difference among younger children.

“It’s the year threes, fours and fives that would’ve been just starting school when covid hit -  there’s a massive difference in the way they act.”

Miller says his school is teaching more about mental health to help the students to better understand and deal with their emotions.

“Every week we have a different emotion that we focus on and teach the kids what that looks like, what it feels like, and how we can recognise them within ourselves.”

Lily Bigwood is a teacher aid and is currently doing her Masters in Behavioural Psychology.

She says that kids are still finding the transition of lockdown learning to in-person classes difficult.

“These kids have spent all this time at home maybe doing one hour of school and now have to come to school for six hours and it's hard for them to adjust.”

Carr says his school has gone back-to-basics to ensure they can fill in any gaps in the children's knowledge.

“In term one and two of this year with our year fives and sixes we are racing through the first four years of school because there are so many holes in their learning from lockdowns.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep them up where they should be because a lot of them have been falling behind.”

Miller says that his school is running workshops to try get the students’ academic levels up to speed.

“We just have to go back to basics and allow these kids to get a solid foundation to their learning.

“I think it's also just about rolling with the punches and having to adapt to how the kids are and what’s in front of us because it will continue to change with every year.”