“The new attainment gap” is a term that has slowly but surely been creeping into use in recent months.

The first time I heard it was interviewing the head of the Highland Virtual Academy, Laura Gordon, in February. When the Highland Council got its share of the government cash to boost teacher numbers in response to Covid-19, it decided to increase the number of staff working at the online school.

Up until then, the school had been beaming lessons into Highland schools to give pupils access to as broad a curriculum as possible, but towards the end of last year its remit grew and it became responsible for supporting pupils who were self-isolating and learning from home.

Of course, when schools closed in January, the majority of pupils found themselves learning remotely and the virtual school had to deploy its new primary and secondary teachers differently in order to add value.

So, it changed its focus and began taking referrals from schools and supporting the pupils who weren’t engaging with online learning. Gordon explained that these pupils had struggled during the first lockdown, often because of mental health problems and anxiety. Some had not returned to school in August, and they represented “a new attainment gap”.

Covid catch-up: The impact of smaller class sizes

The term came up again last week during a meeting of the Scottish Parliament’s Education and Skills Committee. The president of education directors’ body ADES, Carrie Lindsay, who is also director of education and children’s services at
Fife Council, said: “We talk about the gap in attainment in education, but we have to ensure that our schools are looking for a new gap that might have arisen because of the pandemic.”

The EIS teaching union argues that the best way for schools to be able to provide the support that returning pupils are going to need is to employ more teachers. Its recently published manifesto called for more teachers, smaller class sizes (with the aim of 20) and reduced class contact time for teachers, moving from 22.5 hours to 20 hours per week.

Manifestos are, of course, supposed to be aspirational - they are about setting out what you want, not necessarily what you
are going to get - although, reassuringly, the EIS has already, as of this week, got a step closer to one of its asks: universal free school meals. On Monday, the government committed to phasing in free meals for primary pupils by August 2022, beginning with P4 this August.

However, reducing class sizes at the same time as cutting class contact time would, of course, require a huge influx of teachers.

Back in 2017, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Andreas Schleicher argued in
Tes Scotland that, if it were a choice between smaller classes and time for teachers to develop, money would be better invested in the latter.

In the recovery period following a pandemic, however, you wonder if Schleicher would change his mind and opt for smaller class sizes so that pupils can benefit from more personalised support. Certainly, next week, secondary staff
will get a (albeit likely short-lived) taste of what it is like to teach dramatically reduced numbers of pupils, given the requirement for social distancing when secondary students return for face-to-face teaching on Monday.

Secondary school leaders were furious at the government’s shock decision on 2 March to bring all their students back for some in-person teaching before the Easter holidays. It landed them with little more than a week to come up with a blended learning schedule that will last for just three weeks.

However, in an online article for Tes Scotland this week, John Rutter, the headteacher of Inverness High School, highlighted one advantage: that, come Monday, teachers will get “the smaller class sizes we have always wished for”. 

But what if, as the EIS is calling for, class sizes of 20 were to become the norm, not a stopgap solution? Surely that really would give schools a better chance of tackling the attainment gap, both new and old? And there’s one thing we know in these strangest of times - just about anything in education seems possible.

Emma Seith is a reporter at Tes Scotland. She tweets @Emma_Seith

This article originally appeared in the 12 March 2021 issue under the headline “Could smaller classes be the solution to the ‘new attainment gap’?”