Bubble Schools and the Long Road from Lockdown

Book excerpt: This sequel to Breslin’s critically acclaimed Lessons from Lockdown explores how school leaders, teachers, parents and pupils have navigated their way through and from lockdown. This is the story of ‘doing’ schooling against the topsy-turvy backdrop of a pandemic that has caused us all to reflect not just on the purpose and substance of education but also the world that schools might, in the future, need to prepare children and young people for. Drawing on the voices of more than a hundred pupils, parents and professionals, it captures the range of experiences as teachers and students grappled with new ways of working, policy chaos and the complexity of schooling and teaching in such a landscape. Bubble Schools is a must-read for all concerned about the shape that our public education systems take as we begin to move forward from a system-shock that has revealed both the strengths and the weaknesses of education policy, system design and long-established classroom practice.