Has Covid increased the stress levels of students? 

Covid-19 has impacted everyone however the effects it has on students and their learning requires more recognition. Due to the pandemic, many students have found themselves either behind on work or unable to focus as well as they had before school. One student in particular had made quite a few points revolving around the nature of the pandemic and her education stating; "Since the first lock down many students including me have been under a lot more pressure," she had gone on to say "We weren't prepared. It's hard to have to focus on school after you have gotten out of the habit of doing so," talking about how Covid had disrupted the flow of work and she as well as many others had said they didn't feel as prepared to do work and that of a higher level as well. Many students had made similar statements, speaking as to how it wasn’t solely the workload that seemed to have increased but also felt as if their schools hadn’t cared enough about what had happened to their education in lockdown and now the increased workload felt far worse than it would’ve had they been able to prepare more. 

 

Is it solely the workload that creates an issue? 

Although the workload has such a detrimental effect to many, a question that could be asked is whether it was just the new work that created an issue. This was answered by a student when she said “This was a big jump” to begin with, she had spoken about how it wasn’t just the workload but also the fact that she had gone into lockdown in year eight and now was in year ten with GCSE’s being such a main concern. She had also begun to speak about the possibilities of Covid mutating and how that would affect her education stating “We have to keep our grades high at all moments in preparation” revolving around the idea that if she didn’t end up sitting her GCSE’s, it would mean that all the work she had done right after such an occasion would be taken into consideration and that too added much pressure.  

 

Continuous disturbances  

Another thing that students spoke about was that the changes in Covid both in the past and now affected them mentally. One student had mentioned how it was “Unnecessary stress” on top of the exams and although the information shared was important, she felt as if her grades were decreasing as she had issues with what she should be focusing on. She emphasized on the fact that there was more and more stress being added to her daily life and all that seemed to be mounting up, therefore affecting both the quality of her work and the grades she got. A popular opinion had been followed around by numerous students who had made similar claims, what it seems to be is that the changing conditions created many issues for students both within the school grounds and outside.  

 

So, what can be done about this in a school’s perspective? 

There were quite a few points raised between many of the students, one discussing how having more days were mental health and PSHE drop days would assist them greatly. Many students wished to know if others felt the same as they did and found that had Covid discussions helped them. However, in contrast to this, many students spoke about how they wished for school to be an area where they could get away from the haunting thoughts of Covid. There did, however, seem to be one unanimous vote alongside the group of students and that was that whether it be using an online school poll or a conversation in school, Covid had its affects and it did need to be discussed. The quantity of how much it would be discussed would always depend on the school itself and how comfortable the majority felt.