In the context of the post-covid19 pandemic period of reflection on the worldwide impact of the crisis.  A surfeit of social issues related to individual and structural responses to countrywide lockdowns, with implications for inclusion, equality or sustainability, have emerged.    One significant area of concern is education, and research into the repercussions of the transitions and gaps that occurred during this time and implications for further response to national or international crises in this age of uncertainty are ongoing (Ducet et al., 2020; Moss et al, 2020).

School closure in Ireland during the Covid19 pandemic in March, 2020 was an unprecedented period in Irish education.  Given that schooling took place ‘remotely’ with children in their homes, the period of school closures provided a unique opportunity to observe and examine the formation, dynamics and quality of relationships between families and teachers/schools and the impact they have on children’s education. To date the focus of international research has been on the effective pedagogical approaches developed during this period, critical questions about equality of access for different social groups of children and young people, including digital engagement, and their short or long-term wellbeing as a result of the transitions during this time (Crean et al., 2023; Donegan et al., Cullinane and Montacute, 2020).  There is a gap in the literature however, in relation to the interactional and reflexive space where teachers and parents communicated about children’s experiences of learning and educators experiences of teaching.  During the national physical closure of schools during the Covid 19 pandemic, remote schooling was recognised as a critically significant space for the continuity of children’s education (Moss et al. 2020).  The positive interaction between teachers and parents was a significant finding in the ‘Children’s School Lives (CSL) Covid19 sub-study (Report 3, www.cslstudy.ie).  The phrase ‘checking-in or checking-up’ as one teacher remarked however, captures the complexity faced by teachers in reaching out to parents whilst trying to maintain positive and non-judgemental relationships with families as they navigated the provision of educational support for remote learning.  The key questions asked in this paper are: Firstly, how did principals, teachers and parents describe and define their experiences of ‘checking up/in’ during the remote learning period of the first Covid-19 lockdown?  Secondly, to explore what were outcomes of negotiating this space at this time and to examine the broader national and international implications of these experiences, if any, for teaching and learning in similar crises, in the future? 

We frame these experiences within the conceptual lenses of expanding normalisation of surveillance (checking up) (Hope, 2016) and reflexive practice (checking-in), during this unprecedented period in Irish education.  We draw on the concept of ‘reflexive’ practices (Beck, Giddens, Lash, 1994) to analyse and understand the ‘checking-in’ experiences described by parents, principals and teachers that underpinned their motivation and resilience to engage with each other and provide children, with the best education they could under the often strained circumstanced of the extended lockdown period.  Following on, the paper uses Page’s (2017), conceptualisation of three types of teacher surveillance: vertical (Educational institutions and school management); horizonal (peers, parents); and interpersonal (reflective, self-policing), to analyse and understand teacher’s experiences of multiple forms of ‘checking-in’, that has broad implications for the teaching profession, going forward. Analysis of the teacher-parent interactions cross-cuts common themes in educational research related to external/internal patterns of surveillance, power structures, parent and children’s voice, engagement, social justice and wellbeing.

The paper utilises data from the ‘Children’s School Lives’ (CSL) national longitudinal cohort study of primary education in Ireland. The CSL study comprises a nationally representative quantitative study of 189 primary schools, as well as in-depth case study component, comprising of a 13 primary school sub-sample, and uses a cross-sequential longitudinal design, producing a rich set of mixed methods data. The study includes two cohorts of children and their families, Cohort A follows children from their transition from early- education into primary school (aged 4-5 years) onwards and Cohort B that follows children in second class (aged 7-8years) until their transition to secondary school (aged 12.13 years). The data for this paper was collected by the case study team during the Covid19 school closures when cohort A children were aged 4-5 years and cohort B children were aged 7-8 years and includes semi-structured interviews with principals, teachers and parents from the 13 case study schools, representing the qualitative aspect of the wider CSL study. All 13 schools regardless of socio-economic demographic background, demonstrated considerable commitment to develop and sustain remote teaching and learning in the challenging circumstances caused by the pandemic. This paper utilises a grounded theory approach to examine the motivation, processes and outcomes for the ‘checking in and checking up’ dynamic, using qualitative data from the case study schools, that included 12 x principals, 13 x teachers and 28 x families within these schools, who has already made the long-term commitment to participate in the CSL study and were familiar with and consented to the broader aims of the study (Corbin and Strauss, 2015). Consequently, warm and supportive relationships already existed with many of the participants that provided a familiar, respectful and ethical collaboration between the research team and the contributors during this critical time. Schools were contacted at the beginning of the Covid19 related lockdowns and invited to participate in a sub-study of the CSL study in order to examine the impact of remote teaching and learning on children’s school lives. It is a testimony to the strength of the recruitment methods of the study that all schools participated in the interviews, apart from one principal, who had decided to retire. Interviews were conducted using telephone or ‘Zoom’. Semi-structured interview schedules were used and participants were encouraged to provide their own opinions and reflections during the interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using MAXQDA.

Our findings provide a critical insight into the inspiration and motivational stimulus for primary school principals and teachers response to the ‘risk’ to children’s education during the pandemic, as well as examining the role surveillance played in educators communications with children and families at this time. Findings, indicate that surveillance, in the form of contact and monitoring through technology, was promoted and in a sense, normalised through ‘risk’ discourses, and served to integrate the acceptance of invasive digital scrutiny of educational processes, for primary school children. This resulted in a blurring of boundaries between previously separate spheres of work, school and home for school staff and families, reflecting a fluid rather than fixed forms of surveillance. These findings have implications for power relations, wellbeing, sustainability, and social justice concerns for both children and families in disadvantaged schools and for the teaching profession, into the future.

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