Ministers told to ensure pupils have tech

HEADTEACHERS and leaders are calling on the government to make sure pupils have the technology to access home learning.

With most children at home again following the school closures announced on Monday, they are once again facing weeks of remote learning.

But for some families, particularly those with more than one child, they don’t have enough devices or the wi fi needed to do the work.

It was an issue we highlighted last year, when one headteacher said his school’s allocation of laptops had been cut from 173 to 35.

And despite the government investing £300m to support remote education and social care, including ‘providing devices and internet access to pupils who need it most’, many children are still without.

Helen Atkinson-Smith, headteacher at Burnley Brow Community School in Oldham, said a promise of more iPads has failed to materialise.

She said: “We’ve only had seven iPads from the government since the beginning of lockdown. We asked for 40 plus and got seven.

“We are now waiting for the next 27 we have been allocated although we’re told today there are none left – again.”

She said some families don’t have internet access so staff are making and delivering packs to houses.

It was Glyn Potts, head of

Blessed John Henry Newman RC College in Oldham, who highlighted a lack of laptops last term.

He said the government needs to step up to help disadvantaged families.

“If the government is serious about support, then they should ensure that all children who need it have IT and internet access,” he said.

“They also need to be realistic about time scales and the process of return.

“Working with school leaders is critical to solving this so that parents and students can have confidence in our response.”

Political leaders have also been calling on the government to boost its support.

Yesterday Mayor Andy Burnham tweeted: “We need an immediate national effort to ensure every school-age child, and every 16-18 year-old, has access to a device/ data. I will be working with our schools, colleges and businesses to see if we can achieve this in GM.”

Yesterday BT announced it was partnering with the government to provide free data to disadvantaged families and help support remote learning.

Virgin Media also said it would provide 20GB of extra mobile data for free to disadvantaged children, with its broadband packages already having no data limits.

The Department for Education says more than 560,000 devices were delivered to schools and councils in 2020.