Learning through disruption: rebuilding primary education using local knowledge

该项目旨在为公众辩论提供信息，讨论如何最好地利用教育恢复基金（迄今为止为13亿英镑）的资金，在疫情发生后为小学生提供支持。教育恢复专员正在准备一份公开简报，其意图是“关于追赶的决定应该由地方主导，但要有证据支持”（《学校周刊》，2021年）。虽然投资教育的必要性是明确的（Sibieta, 2021； EEF, 2020），但定量研究还不能确切地建议在哪里以及如何花费恢复资金。早期证据包括一些学生出现反弹和意外收获的报告（Kuhfeld et al . 2020）；而旨在“追赶”在正常情况下表现低于预期水平的小目标学生群体的干预措施可能不合适，也不容易在这些特殊情况下扩大规模（NAO, 2021）。本项目将通过上下文敏感的案例研究，为当地层面的恢复规划带来新的证据，使用一个有目的的样本，探索如何在不同的学校中确定恢复中最紧迫的问题，以及它们导致的反应。我们之前对COVID的研究表明，学校集水区会影响学校在中断期间的行动（Moss等人，2020年）。通过有目的地对在COVID期间面临一系列挑战的不同社会流域的小学进行抽样调查，我们将探讨大流行对教育的影响的局部和多维方面，以及它们对更广泛的恢复规划政策讨论的影响。为此，我们将重点关注这些不同学校社区的每个部分在大流行期间的学习经验，并评估随着学校恢复到更接近正常运作的状态，这将如何影响他们的优先事项。到目前为止，恢复规划的地方层面在很大程度上被忽视了，而更倾向于不同形式的研究，这些研究获得了更多的宣传。特别是，媒体报道的重点是潜在影响的大规模定量建模，在这个阶段必须保持推测性（EEF, 2020），实际上，很容易煽动道德恐慌（Forsyth, 2021）。这可能只会扭曲政府的计划，分散人们对学校现在应该做的更明智的事情的注意力。以这种方式推动的政策有可能导致自上而下强加的“解决方案”与实地实际情况之间的不匹配，而对支持性证据（CCT， 2021年）的考虑太少。如果没有对真正适合当地的东西给予足够细致的关注，大量资金实际上可能会被浪费掉。随着学校更全面地重新开放，为了将注意力重新集中到本地层面上，以规划covid后的恢复，该项目将：1。探讨学校因应当地情况，并与即时支援网络对话，支持学生学习的策略2。考虑到学校社区内声音的多样性（教职员工、家长和学生）；在思考这段中断时期对个别学生的影响时，他们在多大程度上趋同或分歧；以及它们是否被相互理解。3. 通过比较个别学校未来的优先事项和策略的异同，确定本地知识在决定如何分配和使用重建资金方面应发挥的作用。通过这种方式，为本项目计划的对具体情况敏感的案例研究将提供证据，说明地方知识如何有助于制定国家重建教育战略，而目前国家仍未就如何使用任何恢复资金作出决定。调查结果将阐明，为了成功满足当地的优先事项和需求，学校应该有多大的自由裁量权。

This project is intended to inform public debate on how the monies committed to the Education Recovery fund (so far £1.3 billion) can best be used to support pupils in primary schools in the aftermath of the pandemic. The Education Recovery Commissioner is working to an open brief with the declared intention that "decisions on catch-up should be locally-led, but supported by the evidence" (Schools Week, 2021). Although the need to invest in education is clear (Sibieta, 2021; EEF, 2020), quantitative studies cannot yet advise on exactly where and how recovery monies should be spent. Early evidence includes reports of bounce-back and unexpected gains for some pupils (Kuhfeld et al 2020); while interventions designed to "catch-up" small target groups of students performing below expected levels in normal times may not be appropriate or easy to scale-up in these exceptional circumstances (NAO, 2021).This project will bring new evidence to bear on the local dimensions to recovery planning through context-sensitive case studies, using a purposive sample to explore how the most pressing issues in recovery are identified in a diversity of schools and the responses they lead to. Our previous research on COVID demonstrates that school catchments influence schools' actions during a period of disruption (Moss et al, 2020). By purposively sampling primary schools working with different social catchments that faced a range of challenges during COVID, we will explore the local and multidimensional aspects of the pandemic's effects on education and their implications for the broader policy discussion on planning for recovery. We will do so by focusing on what each section of these diverse school communities has made of the experience of learning during the pandemic and assessing how this affects their priorities as schools return to something more like normal functioning. This matters as to date local dimensions to recovery planning have been largely overlooked in favour of very different forms of research which have garnered more publicity. In particular, media coverage has focused on large scale quantitative modelling of potential impacts that must at this stage remain speculative (EEF, 2020) and indeed, are prone to inciting moral panics (Forsyth, 2021). This may only distort government planning and distract from what schools might more sensibly do now. Policy driven in this way risks leading to a poor fit between "solutions" imposed from above, with too little regard for the supporting evidence (CCT, 2021), and actual conditions on the ground. Without sufficient fine-grained attention being paid to what is really appropriate locally, a great deal of money may in effect be wasted.To refocus attention on the local dimensions to post-COVID planning for recovery as schools reopen more fully, this project will:1. explore schools' strategies for supporting pupil learning post-disruption, in response to their local circumstances and in dialogue with their immediate support networks2. take account of the diversity of voices within the school community (staff, parents and pupils); the extent to which they converge or diverge on thinking about the consequences of this period of disruption for individual pupils; and whether they are reciprocally understood. 3. through comparison of similarities and differences in individual schools' priorities and strategies for the future, identify the role local knowledge should play in determining how recovery funding ought to be allocated and spent.In this way, the context-sensitive case studies planned for this project will bring evidence to bear on how local knowledge can contribute to a national strategy for rebuilding education, at a point when national decisions are still to be reached over how any recovery funds are spent. Findings will clarify how much discretion schools should be able to exercise in order to successfully meet local priorities and needs.