| Summary: | The working environment in upper secondary schools changed drastically with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A ban on social gatherings was established in Iceland in March 2020 and all schoolwork shifted to on-line learning almost overnight; this lasted throughout the spring semester and continued with various restrictions in the fall of 2020. Upper secondary school teachers answered a questionnaire in May 2020, aimed at mapping the changes to working conditions during the spring semester and the shift into emergency remote teaching (Barbour et al., 2020). At the end of the fall semester, a follow-up questionnaire was sent. The data used in the current paper derive from these questionnaires. The aim is to investigate how teachers at the upper secondary level performed their duties under the new circumstances in 2020, especially during the first COVID lockdown in spring but also as the pandemic continued. Special emphasis is laid on how they experienced their working conditions, e.g., in terms of their definition of duties, stress, collaboration and administrative obligations, as well as their interaction with students and their parents. The support provided to teachers during the first stages of the pandemic, both technological, pedagogical and social is analyzed. The aim is to add to the gradually emerging knowledge base by shedding light on the work of upper secondary teachers during the first waves of the pandemic. The first results show that the teaching profession underwent radical changes during the first period of the pandemic (Súsanna Margrét Gestsdóttir et al., 2020). Upper secondary teachers felt an increased pressure and stress at work and perceived their work as more complicated than before. The experience of stress increased during the fall semester, even though the teachers reported they had a better handle on the work. The data show an important gender difference, as female teachers seem to have been primary caregivers in the homes and consequently found it more strenuous to attend to their ...
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