Dr Emma Blakey is a Senior Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at the University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on cognitive development in early childhood, including aiming to understand why children differ so much in their learning, memory and attention. She became a mum a few weeks before the first COVID-19 lockdown.

Dr Fiona Scott is a Lecturer in Digital Literacies in the School of Education at The University of Sheffield. Her research focuses on young children and their families and their engagements with a range of digital technologies. She was 30 weeks pregnant with her daughter when the UK went into lockdown.

Dr Michelle McGillion is an Assistant Professor in Language and Learning at The University of Warwick. Her research focuses early communication and language development. She fell pregnant just as the first UK lockdown was announced and her baby was born in December 2020.

Research Assistant on the project. Daniel recently completed his MA in Education: Early Years at the University of Sheffield. Before that, he was an early years teacher at a nature-based school in Nairobi, Kenya for five years, working with preschoolers. During the pandemic, he supported parents to help the children transition into online learning from a very outdoor play-based education system.