This has been a very hard year. I teach Years 7, 8, and 9 but it feels more like teaching Years 3, 4, and 5. They are so incredibly immature and lack any kind of agency. I came into one of my classes a few weeks ago and found a Year 7 student sitting under the desk. I asked him politely to go to his seat and he responded "goo goo gaga". So some aren't even year 3 level yet in some/many respects. I get that covid set these kids back. But to this extent? It can't be just the lockdown, something else is going on. I have taught Years 7 and 8 pre-covid, for several years, and they were light years ahead of my current 7-9 socially, emotionally, academically, and in their maturity. I really fear for these kids unless they do a ton of growing up and rapidly, preferably over the summer. They don't have the same fundamental life skills and tools I had when I was in Years 7-9, and again, my 7s and 8s had just a few years ago. However, there are a few students in each grade, maybe 1/3rd, that look on with almost as much horror and bewilderment as I do when watching what some of their classmates do. So some of them have been progressing as expected. Even just watching what they do with their free time, they play like little children, with almost no sense of direction, no point, like they are loose cannons, running amuck.
For whatever reason Years 10, 11, and 12 are around what is expected, by and large. (I teach them too).
