First years of schooling during the pandemic: What did primary school students experience and what will they be facing now?

Teaching in primary school has been strongly affected by the pandemic. The resulting impairment of teaching quality can come along with long-term effects on children's education and well-being. In the present article, we thus ask what learning conditions primary school children have faced during the pandemic and how these may have affected the development of their academic competencies. We found that recent research, which is mostly based on parent survey, revealed very heterogeneous results. However, distance teaching during the pandemic seemed to be not very engaging and did not provide much individual feedback. Reliable conclusions concerning the consequence for learning are difficult to draw at this point as systematic assessments of academic performance were rare. Recent data, however, suggests a high variability in the development of academic skills. We further discuss possible means for compensation of the academic deficits due to the distance teaching. We not only suggest the development and implementation of innovative remedial teaching programs but also the adjustment of the transition to secondary schools to the differently affected learning conditions during the pandemic. Researching the consequences of the pandemic for learning and instruction not only helps coping with the current situation but may also promote the development of instructional methods and innovate means of individual learning support.