In response to the challenges imposed by the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown BERA created the Small Grants Fund. This is a fund aimed at supporting Educational Research into timely issues, and we originally intended to fund 3 projects.

Following our open call earlier in the summer, we are delighted to announce that we have significantly increased the number of awards we have been able to make.

We received almost 80 applications, many of very high quality and following a rigorous judging process, we have diverted funds not being spent elsewhere due to the pandemic into this award. This means that we have been able to make 15 awards of up to £4,000 each.

Each award will support a discrete piece of research on the impact of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) on education and/or educational research. We have also ensured that the awards cover a range of subjects and approaches as well as being awarded to recipients at different stages of their career. We are delighted by the range of awards and the diverse background and interests of the recipients.

The research will run until spring 2021 and we hope to future the results in a collected or series of publications later in 2021 as well as featuring them prominently at the 2021 BERA Conference.

The successful applications (in alphabetical order) are:

• William Baker (University of Bristol) – Examining the impact of COVID-19 on Children’s Centres in Bristol: lessons for policy, practice and promoting life chances in the early years
• Jan Barnes (University of Wales, Trinity St David) – How has COVID-19 impacted on the way in which teacher educators engage their students with learning?
• Sara Bonetti (Education Policy Institute) – The impact of COVID-19 on early years settings and the workforce
• Olivene Burke (The University of the West Indies, Jamaica) – Access to education in a time of pan(dem)ic in Jamaica rural and urban primary (K-6) schools’ experience
• Jane Carter (University of the West of England) – A case study of the impact of Coronavirus on supporting one to one reading for children in need of additional support: the innovations and challenges experienced by Reading Recovery Teachers in Bristol
• Anne-Marie Chase (Australian Council for Educational Research) – What sources of data were used by teachers to inform remote teaching practice under COVID-19:  A study to examine teachers use of existing student data to target synchronous and asynchronous activities during periods of remote learning
• Elizabeth J. Done (University of Plymouth) – Exclusion and the strategic leadership role of Special Educational Needs Coordinators (SENCOs) in England: planning for COVID-19 and future crises
• Fadoua Govaerts (University of Bath) – Towards developing an Education Continuity Plan: supporting schools in times of crisis
• Gurpinder Lalli (University of Wolverhampton) – The impact of COVID-19 on access and (in) effective support of the school food voucher scheme.
• Marsha Maraj (Imperial College London) – Do virtual spaces act as boundaries in collaborative learning? Examining intra- and inter-team peer connections in online learning environments
• Caroline Oliver (University College London) – The COVID-19 pandemic: the experiences of young people with autism and their parents of lockdown and the reopening of schools
• Rachel Shanks (University of Aberdeen) – New teachers’ responses to COVID-19: building on ITE for their professional learning
• Joan Walton (York St John University) – The impact of COVID-19 on the mental health and learning of young children
• Annabel Watson (University of Exeter) – Teaching English when Schools are Closed: Experiences and lessons learnt for the future about teaching English remotely
• Abide Zenenga (Riverside Education, Birmingham) – Exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health & wellbeing of learners with autism: A case study of two special education schools in the English West Midlands region