Children ‘can’t focus for more than 10 minutes’ after Covid

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy Primary school children’s attention spans are “shorter than ever” post-pandemic, forcing teachers to spend less than 10 minutes on each activity to maintain their pupils’ focus, a survey has revealed. A poll of 504 primary and early years teachers in schools in England found 84 per cent agree that primary children’s attention spans are “shorter than ever” post-Covid, while one in five teachers report that they spend less than 10 minutes on average on any single activity to stop children’s attention from wandering The “ever-swiping nature of social media” sites such as TikTok has negatively affected pupils’ attention span, agreed 85 per cent of the teachers surveyed in the poll, commissioned by online subject resource Kapow Primary. “On top of this is the rising incidence of mental health and wellbeing problems among children which is exacerbated by the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on families and the pressures created by social media.” She added: “The Government must also do much more to understand the problems around behaviour and provide more investment and support to schools and families.” A Department for Education spokesperson said: “Our approach to tackling behaviour in schools has been to support schools to develop a behaviour culture that works for them, their pupils, and their communities. “We have updated our Behaviour in Schools guidance to provide clear advice on how to create and maintain high standards and our £10million Behaviour Hubs programme is supporting up to 700 schools to improve behaviour.” The survey of primary school and early years teachers was carried out between April and May this year by Gerard Kelly & Partners.