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.

The theoretical framework of the paper combines the notions of school disengagement and educational trajectories. Our current research has demonstrated that several trajectories of school disengagement can be distinguished: unanticipated crisis, parabola, downward spiral, boomerang, resilient route, shading out. The text focuses on two trajectory types – the parabola, when youngsters facing increasing school disengagement are provided with substantial support and their trajectory changes its direction, and the downward spiral, which despite the support leads to further school disengagement and school leaving. Analysing the educational biographies of students from secondary schools in Warsaw, we focus on their perceptions of the support provided by different formal and informal sources. Investigating the protective factors and successful interventions might thus be useful in fostering the educational success of youth at risk. An analysis of the trajectories might be treated as guidance as to how to offset the negative impact of social and educational inequalities and hence to reverse the negative direction in one’s educational trajectory. The text is based on qualitative analysis of data obtained within an international research project: individual semi-structured interviews with Polish students at risk of early school leaving and youngsters who left school early.

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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.

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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.

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