Fears pupils without computers or internet may fall further behind

There are concerns on how the global pandemic could affect the education of the most disadvantaged pupils. Ruby Kitchen reports.

CHALLENGING THE divide between those children who have access to computers and the internet and those who don’t must be the greatest priority in ensuring the most disadvantaged children are not left further behind in the wake of the pandemic, a leading education campaigner has warned.

Analysis last year warned of a widening attainment gap in the North between the most disadvantaged pupils and their wealthier peers, with young people in parts of Yorkshire nearly two years behind some of their fellow students by the time they finished their GCSEs.

With schools preparing to reopen their classrooms in weeks, school governor and education campaigner Fiona Millar has spoken of the challenges school leaders and headteachers face in attempting to catch up on lost learning and social divides.

As she warns that some form of flexible learning could become a reality in settings for a year or more, she calls for greater urgency in levelling the playing field.

“The whole country has a digital divide, young and old, and this should have been resolved years ago,” she said.

She warned a mix of blended learning – online and classroom teaching – “is going to be the future” until a vaccine finally becomes available.

“It’s about closing the digital divide, and ensuring that whatever blended learning happens in the future, that we result in a much more equal society than the one we already have. Our whole education system needs an overhaul. All this situation is doing is exacerbating inequalities.”

A report from the Education Policy Institute (EPI) last year found there had been a “dramatic” slowing down in the closure of the disadvantage gap, warning that progress made was at a turning point of being undone.

The most disadvantaged pupils were, on average, a year-and-ahalf behind their wealthier peers and in some areas such as Rotherham nearly two years behind by the time they finished their GCSEs.

Ms Millar said teachers and school leaders face a “difficult” challenge in catching up lost time, not just in costs to learning but in social and emotional wellbeing.

And while some young people will have realised the value of education, there will be others who have had “severe learning loss”.

“There will be, in some cases, a lot of work to be done to support these young people and get them back to where they should be,” she said. “Students respond to teachers they know, but teachers can only be stretched so far.”

One of the most divisive challenges has been over delivery of home learning, with many parents pushing for online classes and live-streaming of lessons as some private schools have done.

Addressing challenges over laptop provision alone cannot serve as a solution, Ms Millar said, when there are further complications over austerity.

“The gap had stopped narrowing before Covid,” she warned. “The reason for that is austerity has had a massive impact on certain families.

“It’s really tragic that so much work has gone on in the last 20 years to shift that gap, and now it’s widening again.

“Teachers are expected to put everything in society right. We’ve got to get society right as well if we want to narrow these gaps,” she added.