Return to School After Lockdown

How do children feel about returning to school after lockdown?

With schools returning after a six-month break in some cases due to lockdown, many parents are concerned for their safety. But how do children themselves feel about going back? We wanted to find out so, for this week’s survey we asked them, “How do you feel about returning to school after lockdown and the summer holidays?” We gave them four choices of answer: “Really excited,” “No strong feelings about it,” “Really reluctant,” and “Really anxious.”

You may find the results surprising. The winner by a long way, with almost half of all votes, was “Really excited.” In second place with just under a quarter of the vote was, “No strong feelings about it.” Third place, with 16% of the vote was “Really anxious,” and last place went to “Really reluctant” with 11%.

Children feel positive about return to school

With all the reservations many of us feel about children going back to school, it seems children themselves are looking forward to it. A whopping three-quarters of them feel either excited or not concerned. A mere quarter have negative feelings about it. But does this positive feeling extend to their parents?

To find out the answer we also asked adults the same question. The results were quite similar to the children’s survey, but not quite so enthusiastic. In first place was “Really excited,” though with only 37% of the vote rather than 49. In second place it was still “No strong feelings about it,” though up to 32% instead of 24. Third place went to “Really anxious,” with 20%, and in fourth place was “Really reluctant,” with 11% - exactly the same share of the vote that children gave it.

So, it seems that most of us, parents and children alike, are in favour of schools reopening. In fact, almost half of us are looking forward to it. So there is some good news.