Corona Chronicles: Children researching their everyday lives, education & relationships during the coronavirus pandemic (CHEER): Evidence submitted to the Education Select Committee (Project phase 2, December 2020 – Image elicitation Interviews with children)

This submission to the Education Select Committee* (December 2020) provides evidence from the Corona Chronicles longitudinal research project with children aged 9-11, where children living in some of the most disadvantages wards in the UK chronicled their everyday lives, education and relationships during the coronavirus pandemic (CHEER). The evidence on which this submission draws is an area of which there are almost no comparable studies that include the demographic (children, including disadvantaged and vulnerable children), age (aged 9-11), geographic area (primary schools in the North of England) and participatory qualitative methods. Using participatory art-based research to ‘chronicle’ children’s lived experiences during lockdown, as well as taking part in one-to-one in-depth photo-elicitation interviews, Lomax and Smith researched with 16 children from the start of lockdown to date. Drawing on a dataset of seven data points that include over 100 visual and textual data and 20 hours of in-depth photo elicitation interviews with children aged 9-11, this submission also builds on their earlier submission of evidence to the Education Select Committee – September 2020 (ref KTC729667).

*The Education Select Committee inquiry looked at how the outbreak of COVID-19 is affecting all aspects of the education sector and children’s social care system and will scrutinise how the Department for Education is dealing with the situation. It examined both short term impacts, such as the effects of school closures and exam cancellations, as well as longer-term implications particularly for the most vulnerable children.