Introduction to Shock to the System: Lessons from Covid-19, Vol. 1: Implications & Recommendations

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This report is about the ways in which educational technology can best be used to support teaching and learning for school aged pupils, particularly when traditional education is disrupted. The work we report here is unique in its synthesis of the multiple voices that contribute to the education ecosystem. It is pragmatic and future-facing with an emphasis upon progress, not just repair and returning to the status quo.

 

There is much to learn from the educational disruption caused by COVID-19. To maximize learning, it is vital that the entire education ecosystem is studied, not just one member of that ecosystem in isolation, such as schools or parents. The education ecosystem is made up of a diverse set of interacting individuals in communities and sub-communities, all contributing from different perspectives, using physical, economical, regulatory and pedagogical infrastructures, and mostly operating under a shared goal: to better our society. Like all ecosystems, the education ecosystem relies on strong connections between and within the communities within it, but all too often these communities and their members exist in unconnected silos.  

 

In this report, we present recommendations and practical guidance for educators, leaders, parents and policymakers to help build a better connected and more effective and self-supporting ecosystem. The recommendations and guidance draw on expertise, experience and a rich supply of new data and information about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on school education. The threads that we pull together are drawn from a rich data set collected across the months of disruption in 2020 from the key stakeholders in the education ecosystem: teachers, parents, educational leaders and Edtech companies. This new data is complemented by findings from existing academic literature, as well as research reports and analyses from others about what happened during 2020 when many schools across the world were closed and technology became a learning lifeline for many young people.

 

We focus specifically upon the situation in the United Kingdom and upon the English education system. However, the findings from our research will resonate with educational stakeholders across many different countries who face some of the same challenges when they are required to provide continuous, high quality education, no matter what disruptions are thrown their way.

 

There is much about which education stakeholders should be proud. Education did happen for many, many students often in almost impossible situations with conflicting constraints and high levels of unknown factors. Communities came together, often informally, and shared their learning, supported each other and rapidly scaled up their expertise and capability.

 

Our report is published in two volumes. Volume 1, which follows on from this introduction, includes an executive summary, a set of recommendations, commentaries from expert representatives, from the educational technology sector, and a narrative of the implications we have drawn from the data and research we have analysed. In the Appendix to this first volume you will find a range of invaluable practical guidance.

 

Volume 2, contains the data and evidence upon which this first volume is based, plus an explanation of the methodology we adopted.

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