Record numbers of ‘frustrated’ parents turn to private schools

PRIVATE schools have seen record numbers of new pupils join during the summer term as “frustrated” families tire of the state’s online offering.

Headteachers at fee-paying institutions say they have had an influx of children enrolling just weeks before the summer holidays, many of whom are from families which had never previously considered private education.

“I think the common strand is that mums and dads who are trying to rescue their own businesses and working phenomenally hard are also having to be teachers for their children,” said Chris Hattam, headmaster of The Elms School in Colwall, Herefordshire.

“There is a real frustration,” he added.

The school offered a full suite of live online lessons during lockdown, as well as virtual form lunches, chapel and assemblies.

State school teachers previously have been accused of “blocking” children’s lockdown learning by citing union guidelines, which say they should not conduct any online lessons that made them feel “uncomfortable”.

The UK’s biggest teaching union, the

National Education Union, told its members that online lessons should be kept to “a minimum” and that they “cannot be expected to carry out routine marking or grading” of pupils’ work while schools are closed.

The advice document published by the union added that teachers should not live-stream lessons from home or do any video calls with pupils unless in “exceptional circumstances”.

A study published last month found that more than two million children have done virtually no schoolwork during the lockdown.

One in five pupils in the UK – equating to around 2.3million children – either did no home learning at all or less than one hour a day, according to research by University College London’s Institute of Education.