FEATURE FOCUS: MENTAL HEALTH & WELLBEING


Generation Catch-Up: the roots and the mental health repercussions of lost learning


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ducation Today hears from Louise Pink, former headteacher and now Account Manager at ParentPay Group.


Five years after the first school closures driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, the term ‘catch-up’ still dominates staff rooms, strategy meetings and government speeches. But for teachers, it’s more than policy talk – it’s a daily reality. They see the pupils who hesitate to write full sentences, struggle to speak up in class, or fall silent during reading time. These are the children of ‘Generation Catch-up’. And while the worst of the pandemic may be behind us, the learning gaps it created are far from closed. According to our 2025 survey of over 9,000 educators (teachers, middle leaders, SLT, and Head Teachers ), 86% say the pandemic is still having a negative impact on pupil achievement. For primary schools, where early years development is paramount, 60% say the impact is major. In the schools in the most deprived areas 41% of teachers say far too many pupils are still not where they should be.


These aren’t just statistics. They’re the daily reality for education professionals on the frontline – working harder than ever to plug the gaps.


The legacy of lost learning


While face masks and online lessons are, on the whole, firmly in the past – the effects of lost


classroom time are compounding. Nearly half of teachers report that their worst-affected pupils are between half and a full academic year behind. One in ten say pupils are more than two years behind.


We’re now seeing what happens when disrupted early years education meets the demands of upper primary and secondary school. Children who were in Reception and Year 1 during the first lockdowns are now in Year 5 and 6. In many cases, they’re still struggling with the fundamentals of writing, sentence structure, or even handwriting stamina. These building blocks matter – not just for tests, but for confidence, creativity and communication.


For pupils already experiencing disadvantage, the situation is even more stark. In schools with the highest proportion of children eligible for free school meals, teachers are over three times more likely to say that “far too many” children aren’t where they should be compared to the most affluent schools.


From behaviour to burnout


While learning loss is the headline, it’s not the only story. Teachers rank poor behaviour, pupil mental health, and parental disengagement as the biggest challenges affecting progress. And the causes are deeply interconnected. In the early days post-lockdown, schools prioritised wellbeing. Now, poor behaviour has


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overtaken mental health as the number one factor affecting learning, especially in secondary schools. But these aren’t separate issues. When mental health needs go unmet, they often manifest as behavioural challenges – especially in children with communication difficulties. This is the new reality of catch-up: a generation where learning loss is entwined with confidence loss, emotional fatigue and social skills erosion. It’s why focusing purely on academic interventions won’t work. To support Generation Catch-up, we must meet the needs of the whole child.


The case for joined-up language learning Reading, writing and speaking aren’t isolated skills – they grow together, and after the Covid-19 pandemic, many have regressed together too. Many pupils have struggled with writing due to lost learning time, reduced opportunity to practise, and limited feedback during remote learning. Without regular classroom routines, foundational skills like handwriting and grammar regressed, and many pupils lost stamina and confidence. Social isolation also impacted vocabulary development and language use.


This reinforces a simple truth – in order to address gaps within literacy we must target oracy. Only one in three young people now say they enjoy reading in their free time. That’s the


September 2025


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