Last week, we began workshops for STAGE 2 of APiC’s COVID-19 Project with Children and Young People in Scotland. Supported by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland (CYPCS), ScotYouthandCOVID2 has recalled the Young Consultants who participated in our original project during April/May 2020.
APiC’s self-funded study in April/May 2020 was a participant- led project and report that was one of the only truly participatory projects held with children and young people at that time. It set out the important changes and challenges young Scots were experiencing, including proposed solutions. It involved teams from Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and (Rural) Stirlingshire and Falkirk, each with 4-6 boys and girls, aged 10-16 years. Earth in Common, the Children’s Parliament Imagining Aberdeen programme, Denny High School, Northfield Academy and Manor Park Primary School helped us with the recruitment.
Workshop 2
We reported last week the 9 Big Changes that our Young Consultants have experienced since the COVID-19 pandemic began. These were:
- Remote schooling
- My freedom to go outdoors and travel
- How I spend my free time
- My face-to-face interaction with friends and family
- The Covid-19 related rules themselves
- School holidays becoming less restful
- The stress of Covid-19 tests in school, and vaccination programmes and priorities
- Increasing strains on friendships
- Confusion and uncertainty caused by ever-changing rules and unpredictable schedules
Monday 22nd March 2021 we held the second of our 6 new workshops with our Young Consultants. We reflected further on the above changes and discussed whether/how each of these had affected them over time. We report below on the themes that emerged and the experiences that underly them in the Summer Holidays; Autumn term; Christmas holidays; and Spring term.
Summer Holidays: Relief, but Social Distancing with Friends a Struggle
The summer holidays brought some important respite for our Young Consultants, who reported enjoying the improved weather and greater freedoms. Many even travelled further than usual and discovered new places with their friends and family. In fact, some additional leisure options reopened. Others were worried about catching COVID-19 and avoided crowds, with more time spent indoors than previous summers.
The image below shows the most emphasised point of our discussion – meeting friends was great over the summer. However, it was hard to social distance and some people were more committed to the rules than others.
Autumn Term: School Pressure and Guilt Meeting Friends
The Autumn term brought around a return to school buildings which was a relief for our Young Consultants. For many it even started to feel a bit like normal and that things would be better from here. Yet, they also reported teachers spending a lot of going over the same material from the Spring Term of 2020, on top of teaching new material. This was most pronounced for those in S4 and above. For Young Consultants in Primary School, it was much closer to early 2020 than for those in Secondary School.
Young Consultants also noted that COVID-19 restrictions were increasingly confusing and different in different local authority areas, places, and for different age groups. In school this meant masks had to be worn in corridors, and then also in classes for older pupils, yet not when sitting with friends at lunch.
The image below shows the points they emphasised most. There was also increasing feelings of guilt in meeting up with friends and frustrations around how much peers and other people in the community were following rules and restrictions. For some, this meant they spent less time outdoors than they would like.
Christmas Holidays: Missing Family and Uncertainty over Next Term
The Christmas holidays were a welcome break from school for our Young Consultants. Yet, they were not nearly as restful as usual. Increased uncertainty about whether they would get to go back to school and whether they would be learning remotely again was mentally tough and exhausting. Some also felt the pressure to keep doing schoolwork over the break.
The changing of restrictions around Christmas day also meant that many Young Consultants were incredibly disappointed not to spend more time with friends and family. These were emphasised strongly on their whiteboard.
Spring Term: Remote Schooling is Demotivating and Overwhelming
We reported last week that after a year of disruption, our Young Consultants reported huge concerns around wellbeing of themselves and peers, and significant anxieties about what the consequences of the pandemic would mean for their future. This was summarised as a feeling that a year of their lives having been stolen, or lost.
Below we show the Mural Board with their most emphasised points around the last few months. These issues will be the focus of much of our discussions in further workshops.
What’s Next?
As we delved into the Young Consultant’s experiences further this week, it became clear that the experience of remote schooling and the (partial or full) return to school in recent weeks was stratified based more on age than location. There are also other themes about what has made the experience more and less difficult such as the home environment for remote schooling. Next week we will be reorganising into taskforce-related groups based on or Young Consultant’s preferences to discuss these issues further.
We will be posting frequent updates from the Young Consultants over the course of the project so follow us on Twitter for updates.
Read “#ScotYouthandCOVID: Children and young people’s participation in crisis” with the new foreword by the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland, Bruce Adamson.
Read our blogs covering Stage 1 of this project.