1/5 This @suttontrust Research Brief is about schools. I think it is safe to assume that the same findings apply broadly to FE, Adult Education, apprenticeships, and vocational provision in general: https://twitter.com/sebschmoller/status/1354836003631083520.

2/5 In short, Covid has caused and is causing a large loss of educational output, unevenly distributed by class, ethnicity, geography, level, subject and age. There is not, as the PM said on Wednesday, "a real risk of damage". There is actual damage.

3/5 What is now essential is to acknowledge the problem of lost learning and to assess its extent and distribution; and then to plan how to rehabilitate the people who have suffered the damage, once we are back to semi-normal, to the extent that it is possible to do that.

4/5 If you put this in physical fitness terms then it's as if many learners have been physically injured, which will take time, funding, and a lot of tailored physio to heal, with no short cuts, except in so far as excellent treatment and excellent physio can speed healing.

5/5 Unfortunately, at present, "short cuts to normality" seem to be the main thing being talked about. This needs to change.