The COVID-19 pandemic rapidly transformed the lives of children, young people and families. Depicting the schooling and educational experiences of children, their families and educators during the pandemic in Northern England, Schools and Families on the Frontline highlights the educational inequalities exasperated by the pandemic and critically analyses what this means for education moving forward.

Prioritizing the voices of key groups who were often ‘talked about’ during the pandemic, but seldom ‘talked to’, this edited collection is a unique in-depth socio-geographical anthology that incorporates a variety of key, but different voices working with academics to show how wider national policy shifts effected one specific locality. Focusing on wellbeing, relationships, education, home-schooling and employment experiences of families, young people and children in an area of ‘levelling up’, the chapters shed critical light on how the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdowns were experienced very differently by different groups of people and as such this book speaks to those interested in inequalities as voiced by those who lived through the experience as it happened.

Reflecting carefully on what these experiences mean for schooling and education more broadly in the decades that follow the advent of COVID-19, this is a much-needed platform for future work and research to build upon the multiple ripple effects such a poignant point in time created in relation to schools, education and society more broadly.