Back to School Anxiety in September | Succeed With Dyslexia

Tomorrow is the first of September. It marks a watershed moment for many pupils all over the UK, and across the world – it’s probably the first time in a while they’ve been entering a new year or a new phase of study in-person and surrounded by their classmates.

And whilst it’s exciting to be getting back into the classroom and back into the swing of things, it’s not exactly been an east eighteen months leading up to this point. Anxieties of all kinds have been running high, and many people in education have been feeling isolated and unfulfilled due to interrupted learning patterns and shifting to a more independent and individual mode of study. But that doesn’t mean that this September, everybody from children just starting at Nursery to the most seasoned postgraduate students will be skipping off to their various institutions with unbridled joy – with mental health issues in children of all ages expected to surge post-pandemic, this September is going to be a delicate balance between getting things back to normal, and getting it right when it comes to looking after youth mental health.

It's natural to be worried about making friends, about keeping grades up, about whether you've got the right shoes and bag, about meeting new teachers and lecturers. There's a lot of support out there to help both parents and carers and learners feel supported with these challenges - but there are a lot of issues that don't seem to make it into the 'back to school worries' literature online. Things like how to bond with peers and cope with new workloads are common subjects, but 2021 has its own set of anxieties that we might not have considered or encountered before- and they're pretty hefty ones, too.

With this in mind, we’ve put together a handy little checklist of other points to consider if you’ve got a child or a young person in your life who’s heading back into the world of learning this September, or even if you’re heading out yourself. Remember, everybody is different – and this is something we’re all going to have to take step by step.

After the past year and a half we’ve had, it’s completely understandable that many people are still very worried about the Coronavirus pandemic – and with new variants and higher levels of transmission becoming apparent in many countries now, it’s easy to feel frightened again.  

If you or somebody in your life is anxious about the potential for contracting Covid-19 and want to wear a mask, most schools are amenable to it in the UK – some are actively encouraging it. This isn’t the same across the board, so it’s a good idea to check with your learning provider on what their guidelines are first, but many places are happy to let students wear protective gear if they want to. They could want to for a variety of reasons – they could be worried about contracting the virus themselves, or have a family member who’s high-risk at home – but making these small changes can actually help someone who’s feeling very nervous about returning to education feel a whole lot better, knowing they’re doing all they can to keep themselves and their loved ones safe.

Some institutions will still have social distancing measures in place, and most schools, colleges and universities will have increased their provision of hand sanitising stations too. If you’re worried, it’s a great idea to open up a dialogue with the place of learning and see what amendments can be made to the classroom return – some universities are allowing at-risk students to continue learning remotely, for example, and some schools are allowing children who feel anxious about social proximity to remain on single desks in the classroom.

Part of returning to learning is working out how to get there. When you’re younger, this isn’t that much of a problem – often, parents, carers and grandparents will give learners a lift to the school gates or a nearby street, but as we get older and more responsible for our own transport, things get a little more complicated. Even for students who have previously got buses and trains to school and college, since the last time they were learning in-person, timetables might have changed due to Covid-19, or alterations made to the routes they’re familiar with – and when transferring to a new institution, making the switch between primary and secondary school or high school to college comes with its own new journeys to learn.

No matter how old and street-savvy you are, sometimes it’s a good idea to download a mapping app, or even give the journey a go a few days in advance to account for traffic and diversions – nobody wants to be late on their first day, and having done it all before can really take the anxiety down a notch on that all-important early morning start.

Many people both young and old are also concerned about virus transmission rates on public transport, and it's a good idea to come up with a plan of action if it's unavoidable that they use it to get to school, college or university - putting together a pack of masks and hand sanitiser, or obtaining a face shield can help reduce the risk of transmission and make them feel much safer. You can also look for less busy travel routes, or getting earlier bus or train services that aren't as crowded, or speak to schools about if it's possible to skip assemblies or form periods and travel later whilst the threat of transmission remains active.

Making the switch between learning levels is a big thing. Along with new people and places, there are new subjects, diving deeper into information that you thought you knew, and a whole new set of assessments and exams to work towards. And for learners going in to important assessment periods like GCSE and A-Level, it’s likely to feel even more tense, knowing that come May and June, they’ll be sitting a set of exams that have a marked effect on their future. This is a scary period of change and realignment for almost every student, and it goes deeper than worrying about whether they'll get a good grade - for many, it's the first time they'll have had to think about a grade affecting their life chances and plans beyond the end of the school year. Suddenly having to relate your knowledge of Shakespeare or algebra to your actual adult life is absolutely huge, and students need to be supported through this period properly and intensively. One bad mark can feel like it means they'll never have the career they want; one unlucky mock result might mean that they feel like they'll never make it onto that BTEC or degree they've had lined up mentally for the past few years - and whilst these things categorically aren't true, it remains that the grades they're pursuing during this period are important for shoring up those post-16 or post-18 plans. It's a very real and legitimate thing to be worried about, and that makes dealing with it mentally even more difficult. This is especially true in 2021, when we're seeing widespread unemployment, huge changes in the job market and some careers and degrees becoming incredibly competitive - anxious learners will see things in the news and internalise them very easily.

It’s one of those anxieties that it’s not easy to allay with a simple ‘oh, you’ll be fine’, or pointing out that they’ve coped well academically up until this point – it’s a whole new ball game in a lot of cases, and these fears are very common, no matter how well a learner has performed in the past. The best thing to do again is reach out, and make sure that there’s an open dialogue between student, parent, and educators, so that it’s easy to work together for solutions. If a learner can be open with a parent or educator about problems they might feel that they’re having, or marks not quite what they want them to be, it’s much easier to mine into why that might be and what can be done if everybody is open about what’s going on. It can be scary – for a lot of young people, approaching staff members about their progress might seem difficult, especially if they’re quite new at the institution- but it’s a great way to make sure that they feel supported from all angles going forward. And it's important to make sure that learners know that there are always other options - it's never Oxford Uni or bust. There are hundreds of paths to choose from, and they all have different destinations - just because one chance escaped them, it absolutely doesn't mean they can't find fulfilment in a different place.

Many students will be switching to new educational institutions this year, and this often means moving away from established friendship groups and social arrangements. Some learners might be worried that they won’t make friends, and that’s why many schools and colleges have induction activities that are designed to break the ice and kickstart some early friendships. But whilst some people love them, some people don’t.

There’s a large focus on getting introverted individuals to act more extraverted and interpersonal when it comes to making friends and joining a new institution – but we need to realise that sometimes, it’s better to let friendships develop naturally and in their own time. Social anxiety is running high this year due to current events, and it's a very natural response to what we've all been (or are currently going) through. Many students can’t imagine anything worse than standing up for five minutes to tell the class all about themselves, or share what they did in their summer holidays, or being put into a new group of people to work on a project. This even could be doubly true if they’re neurodiverse – having ADHD or dyslexia and being asked to read or create something on the spot isn’t easy, and could send anxiety levels skyrocketing.

Some learners really respond to icebreaker activities like this and love having an audience or working with new peers, but others really don’t – it’s a good idea for educators to make sure that any induction activities leave room for the people who don’t like public speaking and working with others to flourish too. It doesn’t mean that nobody’s going to make friends, and it’s certainly not strange or unusual, especially after the past eighteen months – everybody is different, we learn and socialise differently, and we should respect that.

This year, we need to focus on mental health, and this means dedicating some thought to how to keep stress levels down – and for introverted children or ones anxious about Covid transmission, this means making sure that they’re not constantly being forced out of their comfort zone. Friendships sometimes take time to develop, as do class relationships, as do social skills and preferences. Traffic light systems can be a good way of working out what learners are comfortable with – for example, a green sticker means they’re happy to group work, amber means working in twos and threes is okay, and red means that they’d rather work alone – so it’s a great idea to support young people in mentioning these kinds of solutions to their educators.

Some learners are heading back into class after a set of SAT, GCSE or A-Level results that were entirely as expected, and they’ve toddled off to Year 7, college and university entirely as planned. That’s great, and we’re happy for them - but what if you’ve ended up with rip-roaring GCSE or A-Level success you weren’t expecting at all, or if you’ve had marks come in at lower than you were predicted? Results have been up and down for a lot of people this year due to changing assessment patterns and the effects of long-term remote learning, so many people are experiencing something a little unprecedented in their grades.

This means that some choices made about the future could be subject to change in the coming months. This could entail sitting Foundation papers when they were expecting to do Higher, switching to a whole new degree, or swapping out some subjects entirely- maybe they weren’t expecting that 9 in GCSE maths and now they want to do Further Maths at A-Level, or maybe their biology results have made them realise that science isn’t really for them. They could have planned a BTEC in construction and engineering, but that A* in physics means they've got their eye on an engineering degree at a Russell Group university now; or they might simply have found themselves thinking that another two years of painting pictures of fruit and seashells (we all remember the fruit and the seashells) will finish them off. Whatever it is, change from an expected pathway is scary, and it can mean that there are a few decisions to be made… and often in quite a short space of time.

Again, educator support is a vital part of the process, and keeping those dialogues open and honest is important in making sure they're making the best decision for them. You can also find help and support at careers sites, like UCAS’ Careers Advice and Prospects, and there’s a careers helpline and an exam results helpline available for over-13s in the UK available at GOV.UK.

September is exciting – it’s that time of year where everything starts coming together again and learning really takes a front seat in millions of young people’s lives all over the world. But it’s also a time when we expect a lot from learners, both mentally and socially – and we’ve been expecting a lot from them for a while now. It’s important to make sure that they (or you!) feel supported both at home and in the classroom, and to really make sure that dialogues are open. It’s important to feel secure, and feel like there are people to open up to if needed – and from parents and carers to educators and VC offices, people need to make sure that they’re listening, too.

It’s going to be a learning curve, and as a world we need to be certain that we’re keeping mental health and student welfare at the heart of the back to school conversation. From nursery to postgrad, learners have had a difficult time, and we need to make sure they’re comfortable enough to ask for what they need- and to lead the way into a new year that might hopefully be a little different from the last.