Home Schooling and 'Lost Learning': Parents' Educational Decision-Making and Children's Experiences of Learning During the Pandemic

Parents faced unprecedented responsibility for their children’s learning during the pandemic. Schools and homes became intertwined in uneven and challenging ways, as parents became arbiters of teaching and learning activities taking place at home. This chapter explores the home-schooling experiences of parents and children in lockdown in the Yorkshire Humber region from September 2021 to September 2022. It draws upon research conducted with families in four primary schools which gathered data using a parent survey, parent interviews and creative focus group methods with children in year six. The chapter explores the ways in which parents navigated home schooling, and the varied factors that influenced their decision making in relation to what and when to learn at home. Children’s experiences of home-schooling are also explored to understand their views of their education during lockdown. We argue that while formal learning against the national curriculum may have been slowed during the pandemic, rich informal learning experiences occurred despite the challenges of lockdown.