Learning Recovery in Yorkshire and the Humber

White Rose Maths (WRM) commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to conduct research to explore evidence that suggested a wider COVID-19 attainment gap in schools in Yorkshire and the Humber region in Autumn 2020, to understand the challenges that schools face, and how recovery in the region can best be supported. This study explores the COVID-19 attainment gap in terms of the difference between attainment before the COVID-19 pandemic compared to during the pandemic. The study concludes that the region should continue to focus on existing learning recovery activities, particularly as there is recent evidence from summer 2021 that the attainment gap is reducing in the region despite additional challenges of the pandemic. However, the region faces exacerbated challenges related to deprivation and a disproportionately adverse impact of COVID-19, and on average pupils remain substantially behind in maths and reading attainment in terms of both comparison to age-related expectations and to prior attainment, as well as being behind where they might be expected to be for their age in terms of skills and confidence.