Ofsted has revealed that observations that were made during November showed that many two- and three-year-olds are struggling with social skills, like sharing and taking turns, post pandemic.
Two-year-olds – who have spent nearly 80% of their life in the Covid pandemic – and babies of 18 months who have lived their whole life in it, are often displaying different characteristics to those who started attending early years settings before the pandemic.
This has been caused by (unsurprisingly) lockdowns and reduced availability of parent and toddler groups which resulted in these children having a lack of interaction outside their close family. With limited social interaction at home during the pandemic, children struggled to settle with unfamiliar people, were more wary, shyer, quieter, and some were overwhelmed in larger groups. Inspectors also found that the language and communication skills of children born in the pandemic were not as strong as those that nurseries had cared for in the past.
On a brighter note, however, findings published in Ofsted’s report also revealed children soon grew in confidence in nurseries and became more comfortable. Ofsted reports that this ‘suggests that there is no long-term negative impact on children’s ability to settle into childcare’.
Ofsted has currently halted all nursery inspections due to the threat posed by the Omicron variant and the rising number of Covid cases in nurseries.
You can read the full story, as reported by daynurseries.co.uk, here.