Article Published: COVID-19 - schooling and childhood

It might seem some time ago but Covid-19 and its impact continues to haunt us. Reports this year have reflected on how lockdown has amplified persistent gaps in education that will be ongoing until the 2030s. Others have highlighted the importance of not assuming things are ‘back to normal’ and the need to engage with the wider policy implications that the pandemic has exposed.

As part of our own analysis we worked alongside Dr Kate Bacon from Manchester Metropolitan University, to reflect on the opportunity that Covid-19 provided to examine the relationship between children, childhood, school and learning.

What emerged through looking at news reporting on 1st June 2020 - that significant day when schools reopened after lockdown -

… was a story about the central place of school as a necessary and required part of children’s childhoods. 

Lockdown shook up everyday life and offered a unique chance to question the centrality of school to children’s lives, along with questions about where and how we learn.

Sadly, the opportunities for such enquiry were largely missed.

This article challenges some of the ways we think about children and childhood which led to fabricated notions of ‘hope’ built on adult assumptions.

It provokes us to think about the need for a hope rooted in the voice and experiences of learners.

It is on this foundation, that we can start to question the status quo as we ask what learning means to us and our communities.

This paves the way to both review and renew the relationship between children and school - a task that if not addressed will have implications for communities long beyond the 2030s.

READ our article in the British Educational Research Journal

[Image credits: Johnny Greig from Getty Images Signature and BERJ for cover image respectively]