Co-MAP Mapping Senior Leaders' Perceptions of the Impact of Local and National COVID-19 Closure/Lockdown Policies on Schools and Vulnarable Young People and Those at Risk of Exclusion

Abstract

Context of the Co-MAP Erasmus+ Project
The Co-MAP project responds to the urgent need to understand these issues the impacts of children and young people (CYP) learning in lockdown in relation to the most vulnerable young people, including refugees, and to ensure that school leaders, teachers and parents are equipped to respond to the consequences of their lockdown experiences. Co-MAP will work with a social justice theory of education (Tikly 2011) that understands education practice as constituted through the complex interplay of policy, the school environment and family and wider community. As such, Co-MAP does bring these three key constituents into dialogue. Co-MAP will work with school leaders in 25 schools five participating countries (Greece, Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary and the UK) to map a state-of-the-art comparative case study of national and local policies for schooling during the pandemic. This will include a study of how definitions of vulnerability and categories of ‘at risk of exclusion’ have shifted as result of the social and economic precarity created by the pandemic and how schools have attempted to adapt pedagogies and practices to meet the needs of the ‘newly vulnerable’.
Examples of inspiring practices are collected through this process and shared via the online learning platform developed through the project. Co-MAP will then make use of participatory, arts-based methods to bring into dialogue young people (100), teachers (50) and parents (50) from 10 schools in five participating countries (Greece, Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary and the UK). These intergenerational, cross sector groups will work together to undertake collaborative, community mappings of lived experiences of learning through the pandemic. Mapping will focus on identifying barriers and enablers and consider the roles and functions of people, resources, materials, spaces and places as well as opportunities for young people’s agency and self-mediation of learning. This will be followed by a series of artist led ‘Maker Space’ encounters that will teach young people new creative skills in comic-making and animation and “provide the freedom to play, experiment, tinker and exchange ideas” (Rowsell, 2020:14 drawing on Marsh).
As an outcome of these encounters young people will narrate the outcomes of community mapping through creation of a range of artefacts that will be shared with the wider community and general public (as the third key constituent in education practice) through well-established street papers The Big Issue in the UK, Shedia in Greece and Fedél Nélkül in Hungary who are Associate Partners in CoMAP. This will open up and shape public discussions about the experiences of schooling for young people at risk of exclusion during the Covid-19 crisis and inform a series of policy briefings in all five project languages for school leaders and policy makers to inform future strategic decision making about policy and resource allocation.
A short face-to-face learning programme for teachers and an online learning platform will provide continuing professional development. A collaborative ‘digital conversation’ space designed for ongoing conversations between teachers, young people, parents and artists and will facilitate upscaling of the project outcomes and an Advocacy Toolkit will secure the sustainability of the project with all beneficiary groups beyond the period of funding. Whilst primarily focussed on young people’s learning Co-MAP will secure a legacy for the creative community by enabling participant artists and publishers with the opportunity to experience collaborative work in school settings with teachers, leaders and young people and build entrepreneurial models of practice that will enable them to grow new markets for their work in the education sector.

Context of the IO1 research report
Working with Tickly (2011) and Tickly and Barrett’s (2011) socially just theory of education that recognises education practice is constituted through the complex interplay of three interacting and overlapping environments (the policy context; the school environment; and the family and wider community environment) IO1 focused on the policy context.
IO1 output produces a first-time mapping of the national and local policy contexts for schooling during the Covid-19 pandemic paying particular attention to both the impact on young people most at risk from exclusion in the pre-pandemic period, including those facing multiple disadvantage e.g. in deprived urban areas of the UK or rural environments in Hungary and those from newly arrived families (e.g. asylum-seekers, refugees, Roma families) and those made newly vulnerable as a direct consequence of the pandemic, for example those experiencing food poverty, economic or housing crisis. School leaders were recruited from at least five schools in each country (a minimum of 25 schools in total) to participate in interviews and focus groups to discuss their experiences of working with young people during the pandemic. These activities explored a) School leaders’ perceptions of the impact of national and regional policy on schools and communities b) the role and accessibility of digital technologies in sustaining learning and or creating divisions between different groups of young people c) any particular impacts on those already at risk of exclusion and changing definitions of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘at risk of exclusion’ as a result of the pandemic d) examples and case studies of inspiring practices from each country.
Subsequently, a summary report (in English) was completed for each country IO1, A1. These reports inform the comparative analysis undertaken in this report, which will in turn inform discussions in IO2 as well as policy briefings in IO5. All templates and resources associated with the production of IO1 will be available on the learning platform produced in IO4 to ensure that the work is replicable in new contexts.