In Spring 2020, schools in many countries had to close in response to the COVID-19 virus pandemic and move to remote teaching. This paper explores the views of pupils, parents/carers and teachers of ‘home-school’ in one Norwegian municipality, gathered through parallel online surveys in April 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 lockdown period. It finds that adaptation happened very quickly and that home-school was well received by pupils and parents. There was more creative learning, better progress, more useful feedback and greater student independence. School leaders reported that they wanted to implement changes based on the experience of remote learning enforced by the lockdown, so that the crisis has become an opportunity for grassroots innovation.

A great deal of research has been reported in Australia, Great Britain and the USA on the participation of parents in children's education. This review focuses specifically on the learning of reading in the primary school, and the effects of various forms of parental participation on its effectiveness.Studies on parental participation fall generally within three categories: (1) descriptions of parental involvement programmes; (2) studies of the attitudes of parents, teachers and teacher educators to such programmes and (3) studies of the outcomes that result from parental participation, particularly in the area of academic achivement. The focus of this review is on studies in the third category. Several methods of implementation are identified, based on different views about the role of parental participation. Major research studies described include the Dagenham study, the Haringey experiment, the Bellfield study and several projects involving Hannon in Great Britain, a project by Siders and Sajeski in the USA, and another by Share in Australia.