Very few countries were prepared for the disruptive effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education. The school closures that happened as a response to the health emergency were unprecedented in length and duration. Policymakers, schools, teachers, parents and pupils, all found themselves having to deal with the uncertainties the situation created, at speed and with no good map to guide them (OECD, 2022; Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2021; Thorn and Vincent-Lancrin, 2022). At this distance from the immediate crisis, this paper asks whether the policy convergence on “learning loss” and “remote education” as the key focus for educational research post-COVID, ignores the more pressing issues facing schools and pupils as the pandemic recedes. Not least, how growing up in poverty affects children’s lives; and the crucial role schools play in sustaining their communities during difficult times.

Drawing on data collected from a series of research projects looking at the immediate responses of English primary schools to school closures between 2020 and 2021 (Bradbury et al, 2022; Harmey and Moss, 2021; Moss, 2022), this paper will set out the very different priorities that steered schools’ and teachers’ responses to the crisis at the time, and their key concerns now. Recognising that their priorities were gaining limited traction with either policymaking or researcher communities at the time, our own research was designed to reframe the nature of the public conversation on COVID, its impacts and recovery strategies (Moss et al, 2020; Moss et al, 2022). 

The dilemmas that the English case demonstrates will be used as a prompt for reflection on the contradictions in the logics of "governing at a distance" and the disconnects it creates in the knowledge-ecosystem (Krejsler, 2013).  The paper asks whether different modes of critical engagement with a wider range of educational stakeholders might open up new possibilities for bridging the boundaries between research, policy and practice. Not least by building alternative avenues for education itself to knowledge-build on aspects of schooling that currently lie outside the outcomes and accountability frames that so many governments rely on to inform what they do. We argue that such research needs to start from community stakeholder knowledge of the issues that matter most in their context and adopt approaches that enable their perspectives to help set the agenda for future educational research.

The theoretical framework draws on key concepts in policy sociology and uses them to seek meaningful agendas for educational change. These include the concepts of policy trajectories and enactments and the contribution to understanding governane and policy effects that stems from Le Galès'  conceptualisation of policy instruments as "the accumulation of devices and their interaction without clear purpose" that lead a life of their own (Le Galès, 2022)

This paper draws on findings from four research studies conducted by the same research team between May 2020 and September 2021. Two of these studies were funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, under their rapid research response to COVID call (Grants ES/V00414X/1 and ES/W002086/1); one was funded by the Union Unison; and one by the Department for Education as part of a wider systematic review of harms and mitigation strategies. The two ESRC projects focused quite specifically on primary schools as they remain closely tied to their local communities. To understand their response to the crisis both projects adopted a place-based approach, putting local perspectives first. Methods adopted in the first project included: a survey conducted through a dedicated mobile phone app (Teacher Tapp) that collected data from a representative sample of primary school teachers in May 2020 (See Moss et al. [2020] for full details); a systematic review of the literatures on learning loss and learning disruption caused by other natural disaster (Harmey & Moss, 2020; Harmey & Moss, 2021); and documentary collection of the storylines emerging from: guidance issued by the DfE; press-reporting on the impact of the crisis on schools; and research addressing COVID and education. The second project, conducted one year later, used a qualitative case study design to better understand variations in schools’ experiences and how this influenced their priorities in summer 2021, as schools prepared to reopen fully. Seven schools were recruited, using the principle of maximum variation to ensure geographical spread and differing rates of COVID locally. Schools were approached via different brokering organisations (teacher unions/ MATs/teacher support networks/ LAs). Case study interviews were conducted with heads, staff and parents in each school. The findings from these two studies were complemented by a national survey of teaching assistants conducted in February 2021; and a systematic review of published research studies conducted for the DfE in summer 2021.

One of the most striking aspects of the COVID pandemic in education has been the persistent disconnect between the dominant narratives that the media and politicians have drawn on in interpreting the impacts of COVID as “learning loss”, or as needing redress through remote education, and the perspectives of frontline staff preoccupied with a much more diverse range of impacts on pupils and their families. This disconnect illustrates the fragmented way in which knowledge builds in education right now, often putting the interests of policymakers, and those who benefit from close connections to policymaker networks, first. This marginalises more open and more democratic forms of engagement between researchers and a wider range of community-based stakeholders. Such deliberative dialogue can suggest very different kinds of knowledge gaps that urgently need to be filled.

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