Corona Chronicles: Children researching their everyday lives, education & relationships during the coronavirus pandemic (CHEER): Evidence submitted to the Education Select Committee (Project Phase 3, March 2021 - Creative data by children)

Towards the end of March 2020, as part of the measures taken to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, schools closed to all pupils except vulnerable children and children of key workers. Some year groups returned to school in June, but most children did not return until September 2020. Therefore, for several months the majority of pupils were learning at home. Schools were physically closed to most children again on 5 January with 24 hours’ notice and remain closed indefinitely, until further notice from the Government. The Committee will question senior officials at the Department for Education on how well it managed its overall response in the first lockdown, including whether it effectively supported schools and pupils in England during this period, whether it managed the move to mainly home-learning effectively and whether it effectively supported vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
This submission to the Committee (March 2021 - REF TIY660201) provides evidence from our longitudinal research with children aged 9-11, including vulnerable and disadvantaged children, about school closure and the move to home-learning. The evidence on which this submission draws is an area of which there are almost no comparable studies that include the demographic (children, including vulnerable and disadvantaged 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, we researched with 16 children during the first 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, this submission also builds on our earlier submission of evidence to the Education Select Committee - September 2020 - ref KTC729667 and December 2020 - ref HSE0729667.