How can fearful and anxious children can re-engage with their education successfully post lockdown?
The impact of the pandemic upon the education of children and young people is still being assessed. It is fair to say that at this stage, schools are working hard to help children and young people adjust back into school life. For some, the adjustment was met with relief as they happily re-joined their friends, teachers, and class groups. For other children, the return to school has been met with significant anxiety as they struggle to cope with a return to a busy environment and routine with new adjustments and safety requirements. Connect2 Education teachers use their experience to re-engage children successfully with full time education .
Anxiety affects learning
Sadly, some children and young people have become so fearful and anxious about returning to a post lockdown world that they have become emotionally withdrawn.
Children and young people can experience anxiety very differently. Some children may develop a physical response such as stomach-ache, headache and even physical sickness or symptoms of panic such as becoming very tearful, feeling dizzy or breathing rapidly. Others may become so withdrawn they are unable to talk about how they feel because they do not have the emotional literacy to describe what they are experiencing. This is especially true for children and young people who have neurodiverse needs.
Our teachers are highly experienced in working with children and young people who feel anxious, reluctant to re-engage with learning or fearful of leaving their home to attend education. We understand the importance of developing trust with our students and their supporting family members or carers.
Medical tuition
Connect2Education has also supported children and young people with medical conditions both short and long term. When a child is at home and has missed their education, our teachers offer gentle and supportive education sessions to help children build up their ability to learn again.
How do we work?
Where a child or young person is in the family home, our staff will work one to one online. A clear benefit of this is that children often manage their anxiety better with on line teaching as the teacher is not directly in front of them. Over time, our teachers create a good working trust with their students. Once a good working basis is established, children and young people may agree to come into our education centre to meet their teacher face to face. This may seem like a small step, but it is often an important step mentally for a child or young person with anxiety. Coming into centre means that they have developed some emotional resilience to cope with a different environment from home.
Re-engagement
Connect2Education is an alternative education provider, so a much smaller, quieter learning environment from a mainstream school. Our experience in working with children and young people in this structured way helps them to build confidence, re engage with their education and develop further emotional resilience. Most importantly, whilst a child or young person is working through a mental or physical transition back to school, our teachers ensure there is minimal disruption to their education.
Connect2Education work as an extension to a child or young person’s education. We work directly with schools and local authorities as part of a team in support of a child re integrating into full time school. Although we do not offer full time school hours, we can offer part time provision as an important steppingstone, building a child’s confidence with bespoke one to one teaching which quickly closes gaps in learning. This means once a child does return to full time education, they are equipped to resume their learning immediately.
Find out more
If you would like to find out more about our education centre in Stokesley please do get in touch via our website http://www.connect2education.co.uk or contact Julie Phillips SENDCo on 01642 961230
