**Abstract**

The chapter reports on the findings of a small-scale mixed-method study conducted amongst thirty sampled school principals. In the study, the principals share their challenges and achievements in implementing COVID-19 responsive policies in a turbulent school environment threatened by the pandemic. We sought to understand the experiences of principals in managing the implementation of policies necessary to make situational analyses in navigating the unstable academic year. We used the concepts of geographies of place and situational leadership to understand first, how principals managed to implement the national and provincial policies to ensure learners share available learning space without physical contact. Second, it was to understand the implementation of curriculum recovery programmes meant to mitigate against lost teaching time. Both quantitative and qualitative techniques were used to generate data to answer research questions that underpinned the study. The findings suggest that principals faced challenges in implementing the policies in areas of phasing in all grades, ensuring continuity of teaching and learning due to intermittent outbreaks of COVID-19 infections. This resulted in the loss of schooling time because of temporary closures of schools and the absence of teachers which impacted negatively on curriculum delivery.

**Keywords:** geographies of place, situational leadership, turbulent, social distancing, structural inequalities

### **1. Introduction**

The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 that led to protracted school closures severely affected the South African education system. Poor infrastructure and the lack of disaster management policies and structures for managing the crisis exacerbated the turmoil that prevailed at both the education policy domain and the school level. There was a policy disjuncture between what was portrayed as the situation that existed at the schools by the Joint Teacher Unions, a collaboration of different teacher unions, and what the districts were reporting to the national and provincial departments. The principals were under pressure from both the national and provincial education departments to implement the COVID-19 response guidelines in a complex and

turbulent environment. As leaders in schools during this crisis, principals were relied upon by both the national and provincial education departments keen on saving the academic year. Hence, quick-fix policy responses and decisions caused tensions between the policymakers at the national level and Joint Teacher Unions [1].
