Authors: Dr Emily Marchant (ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Child Health and Education, Centre for Population Health, Swansea University), Dr Michaela James (Research Officer, Centre for Population Health, Swansea University) and Prof Tom Crick (Professor of Digital & Policy and Deputy Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Civic Mission), Swansea University)
School closures were one of the control measures used to stem the transmission of COVID in the UK. We wanted to find out what impact school closures had on the education, health and wellbeing of pupils and school staff and the challenges that emerged when schools reopened.
To do so, we conducted a survey of over 200 teachers and other school staff working in primary schools in Wales.
We looked at the effect of school closures from their perspective – and found out what they thought schools should focus on as they returned to face-to-face teaching.