Ministers have been issued a stark warning by parent campaigners that more children will perish from suicide than from contracting Covid-19 if schools are shut, according to a damning new report. On March 18, 2020, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that schools in England were to close indefinitely, making it the longest school closure among European countries. In September 2020, children returned to their classrooms, only to have schools shut down again in January 2021. Even when they reopened in March, Covid outbreaks and isolation rules caused significant disruptions.
The Government was warned in November 2020, according to a joint briefing paper by the Department for Education and the Independent Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviors, that “many more children will die from suicide than Covid-19 this year.” They cited an increase in self-harm among young people during lockdown. At a Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) meeting in the same month, attended by senior scientific advisers responsible for briefing key players in Westminster, these concerns were shared. Senior officials from various departments, including the Department for Education, the Cabinet Office, and the Home Office, also heard these warnings firsthand.
Despite the alarm raised, the Government decided to keep schools closed for most of the spring term in 2021. In England, 161 individuals between the ages of 10 and 19 died from suicide in 2020, compared to just 34 deaths from Covid in the same age group. UsForThem, a parent campaign group, claims that the suicide warning is one of nine missed opportunities by the Government to prevent the harm caused by school closures during the pandemic.
UsForThem, founded by Liz Cole and Molly Kingsley, plans to release a series of reports on the decisions made during Covid. These reports will explore the impact of school closures on transmission, including discussions documented in SAGE papers that emphasized the limited impact on stemming transmission. The reports will also address safeguarding issues, such as the increase in calls to Childline and the lack of preparedness for schools’ reopening in autumn 2020.
The campaigners are calling on the Covid Inquiry to consider their evidence, as they were staunch supporters of keeping schools open during the pandemic. They cite a 2016 influenza pandemic response test, which recommended finding ways to keep schools open, a recommendation that does not appear to have been followed by the Department for Education.
Anne Longfield, chair of the Commission on Young Lives and former children’s commissioner for England, expressed her disappointment in the Government’s handling of the situation, stating that the interests of children were overlooked on a large scale. She highlighted the weakening of safeguards for vulnerable children and the negative impact on their mental health due to increased isolation and withdrawal. This has led to difficulties for children, labeled the “lockdown generation,” in areas such as education and social skills.
In response to the report, a spokesperson for the Department for Education acknowledged the significant impact the pandemic had on children and emphasized their investment in education recovery initiatives and mental health support teams in schools. The spokesperson also mentioned the ongoing UK Covid-19 Inquiry, to which the department is fully cooperating.
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