Learning from the COVID-19 home-schooling experience: Listening to pupils, parents/carers and teachers

Abstract

In Spring 2020, schools in many countries had to close in response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic and move to remote teaching. This paper explores the views of pupils, parents/carers and teachers of ‘home-school’ in one Norwegian municipality, gathered through parallel online surveys in April 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown period. It finds that adaptation happened very quickly and that home-school was well received by pupils and parents. There was more creative learning, better progress, more useful feedback and greater student independence. School leaders reported that they wanted to implement changes based on the experience of remote learning enforced by the lockdown, so that the crisis has become an opportunity for grassroots innovation.