The article presents selected aspects of the empirical qualitative research conducted by the authors at the end of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland, in July and August 2020. As in March 2020 SARS-CoV-2 virus started to spread, the Polish Ministry of Education decided to close nearly all educational institutions, and teachers were forced to carry out lessons using the means of distance education. The authors of this paper tried to establish how teachers of English as a second language (ESL) working with young learners in three different types of institutions (public and private (pre-primary and primary) schools, language schools) coped with the situation of teaching a foreign language under these unusual circumstances. One of the results showed that teachers in three types of settings received different support. This either helped them to cope with the new situation of remote teaching, e.g. by choosing a platform for online teaching or providing meetings with a methodologist (private settings and language schools) or caused more confusion by leaving the decisions to the teachers (public settings). The findings of the study may contribute to the knowledge of remote education development and implementation of new technologies in teaching English to young learners, which may result in better quality language education in the future.

Remote education caused by the spread of SARS-CoV-2 virus proved to be a difficult experience for all of its participants. Teachers and parents faced logistical and organisational challenges in teaching young children, but were equally affected by educational and socio-emotional development issues. The aim of this article is to present how personal and social education (PSE) was carried out by Polish teachers of the first three grades of primary school during remote classes. The authors conducted an empirical qualitative study in early 2021, before the third school closures in Poland. The study involved 20 teachers and 20 parents of pupils in grades 1–3 of public primary schools from the Mazovian voivodeship. A semi-structured interview was used to explore the experiences of the respondents and obtain information to address the research question: “How was personal and social education carried out by teachers during remote education in grades 1–3 of Polish primary schools in the COVID-19 pandemic?”, which referred to the activities used by teachers to implement remote personal and social education, as well as the parents’ and teachers’ opinions as regards this process. The conclusion pointed out by the majority of respondents was the need to adapt to utterly new conditions, to focus on the emotional and social needs of the youngest pupils being the result of an unfamiliar, remote reality. The PSE with the youngest pupils during the pandemic was carried out in two ways: prevention and intervention. Prevention took place during everyday meetings, and took the form of a talk about their experiences from the previous day or anything that mattered to childrenwithin the time of the online classes. Intervention took place only when needed, and took such forms as an individual conversation with the pupil, a conversation with a parent or other.

The article presents the importance of games and play activities for children in the first years of primary school during and after distance learning caused by COVID-19. The shift of education to online reality has been a challenging experience. Teachers had to find new ways to work with children, whereas kids had to cope with the new school reality. The aim of the article is to present the ways in which play-based activities were used by primary school teachers during remote education, based on an exploratory and descriptive study. The main research question was whether and how games and play-based activities were used during remote education in the first three grades of primary school in the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with primary school teachers and parents of students from grades 1–3. The main conclusion is that play, perceived as an important factor in early childhood education, was used by teachers in remote education to introduce a new topic, expand the scope of the material, involve children in the learning process, assess what they had learned and help to relax during classes, even if there were limitations arising from remote education and the specific needs of the youngest learners.

The aim of this article is to analyse the impact of both the latest education system reforms in Poland and the COVID-19 pandemic on the educational trajectories and the labour market situation of vulnerable youth. To fully grasp the complexity of the current circumstances we start with a review of research on the so-called “lockdown generation”, i.e. young people who, as a result of the pandemic, have had their participation in education and vocational training hindered for a long time due to political decisions on school closures and online education. These analyses are complemented by individual interviews with relevant stakeholders. The results of the analyses conducted so far show the disturbing effects of the current political changes and global crises on the trajectories and labour market entry of groups that are habitually considered as the most at risk of educational exclusion. We discuss the greatest barriers and new inequalities created by the current accumulation of adverse external contextual factors and pre-existing risk factors at the individual and meso levels, as well as possible systemic measures of support for young people.