3. Feelings of Loss
Most young people expressed some sense of loss as a result of the
COVID-19 pandemic, although they experienced this in several different
ways.
3.1 Relationships: loneliness and managing difficult emotions.The majority of participants expressed sadness or annoyance at being
apart from their friends when they were working from home, and found
this difficult: “I couldn’t get out and I couldn’t go and see my
friends, so that was quite hard and I guess it made me kind of upset”
(Isabel). Conversely, some recognised that lockdown had both positive
and negative aspects regarding relationships, which made them feel mixed
emotions: “happy with my family. But sad when I miss my friends. So
kind of a mixed range of emotions I would say” (McEye). However, for
others, there was a broader range of emotions present:
A mix really. Sometimes I’m gonna be upset with myself and say, I’m
trying to interact with my friends online. But say like I’m doing a hand
gesture and they can’t see, it annoys me a little bit, so annoyance and
upset. But also I have happiness because I can finally see my family for
more than five minutes before I’ve got to go to bed (Jeff).
Even since returning to school, safety measures such as ‘bubbles’ meant
that they still did not see their friends:
It’s a bit sad, because … I can’t see them [my friends]
because we’re in year group bubbles, because I don’t just have friends
in year nine I have friends higher up in school, and now I can’t really
see them apart from if I see them like waiting for the buses or
anything… it’s not the same as chatting to them for like an hour
(Alfred).
Some participants also missed other family members during lockdown: “I
really did miss my Nana a bit. When she was finally able to come round,
it was just really nice. I couldn’t see my cousin’s either… not
being able to see them was the negative” (Olaf). One participant
described how talking to family members over video “felt weird” as
“they weren’t that used to the technology” (Bruce) which was a barrier
to keeping in touch with wider family.
3.2 Support from teachers. All participants commented on the
loss of support from their teachers when working from home, stating this
as the main reason for preferring to be in school: “I didn’t really
like it because I’d rather be at school. Because I’d be able to ask the
teacher and all that… And, when you’re online you’re not able
to… do that. I kind of like being in school more” (Elsa). For
some, this was particularly challenging for certain subjects:
So you just message [the teachers] saying I didn’t really understand
that bit and they would get back to me, but I found that bit really
hard, because with some types of work like Spanish, I felt it was better
with help from the teachers, because it’s languages and you need to hear
it, so it makes sense (Isabel).
However, a small proportion of participants commented how doing their
schoolwork from home had actually given them more independence, which
they enjoyed: “I actually find it a lot easier… I did all the
work. I was sat in a comfortable place. I have the TV right in front of
me. Most teachers say that like music makes you distracted or something,
but I find that it really helps me… I found it quite nice just to
be able to do it when I want or how I want without the teachers and
every other student around me” (Olaf). Others commented that it was
motivating themselves to do the work without having “a teacher to tell
me ready what to do” (Trevor) that was the tricky element, while some
felt the main difficulty was not being able to get immediate feedback on
their work:
You could send them an email during the lesson but… it would take
them a while to get, to respond to like, it was very strange because
some of the teachers in school, they have inboxes with thousands of
emails in and it’s, it takes a while, you have to, you might have to
send a couple of emails before it gets through (Alfred).
However, even on returning to school, some participants noted that the
new restrictions meant they still could not always get support or
immediate feedback from their teacher:
The teachers have to stay in a box so they can’t go out of the box to
help you. So if you sit at the back of the classroom, you have to, you’d
have to ask for help, and you couldn’t go to them. You just have to ask
questions in front of the whole class, and they have to like zoom in on
the board, and they can’t mark our books so the books have to isolate
for 72 hours (Isabel).
3.3 Loss of hobbies and experiences. Some young people
described how hobbies they previously enjoyed has “just gone”
(Alfred), both in school, such as lunchtime clubs, choir and band, and
outside of school, such as Scouts and Guides, netball and football. Some
described this as “annoying” because they could not see their friends
at these clubs (Elsa), while others felt sad: “I used to go to Guides
every single Wednesday and in lockdown, we would just have a zoom call
and then it was the summer holidays and it’s just not been the same
really… it does make me feel upset” (Isabel).
Some participants also described a loss of broader experiences as a
result of the pandemic, such as not being able to have a birthday party
or go on holiday: “[I was] annoyed because going on holidays is the
best bit of the year and we missed it” (Trevor). For the young people
who had transitioned to secondary school over the summer holidays,
missing their last days of primary school was particularly upsetting:
“I just felt sometimes I just really want to do [the leavers’
disco]. Because… it’ll be like a nice ending. And you remember
those bits where you’re leaving, but now you don’t have much to like
remember, all them happy experiences” (McEye). They went on to explain
that they felt they had lost out on being able to do activities together
with their primary school class during the last weeks of term: “because
we had to social distance, we couldn’t do as much as we really wanted
to… we all wanted to be together but we couldn’t”.
Furthermore, for these participants, they also had not been required to
do their primary school Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) which they were
upset about due to the work they had put into preparing for them:
You’ve done all your mocks, you’ve worked really hard and then you don’t
get to do like the final assessment to see where you’re actually at. So
I would say it’s a bad thing… It’s just like your mocks were
pointless, basically because you don’t actually get to do your SATs. So
it made me feel quite upset (McEye).