Education Infant pupils left out of laptop schemes
AGOVERNMENT scheme to tackle digital poverty during home schooling has excluded a “vital” stage of education, a head teacher has said.
While primary schools and secondary schools can apply to the Department for Education for laptops and tablets, to give to pupils while they are learning remotely, infant schools are not eligible.
Staff at Broadway Infant School in Yate are among those having to make their own provisions, securing donations as well as printing, compiling and delivering paper resource packs, for children unable to access them digitally.
Head teacher Jodie Tumelty said: “I don’t understand why infant children haven’t been considered in the allocation, and it’s never been highlighted. All other infant schools will be in exactly the same position.
“There isn’t any device allocation for infant schools, but there is the same expectation [as primary and secondary schools] to provide remote learning for children at home.
“We are not in a hugely deprived area but we finding that there are a range of families who haven’t got devices and who need support.”
Although she acknowledged the difficulties of rolling out provision, she said she feels children at infant schools have been “overlooked”.
The school has 180 pupils on roll, aged between four and seven and about 44 per cent are still coming in at least part-time for the core lockdown provision.
It has managed to lend out some laptops and tablets donated from individuals and businesses, as well as from South Gloucestershire Council, but there are still some children without.
Miss Tumelty and her team have been making up paper learning packages so that those children can still have access to resources, albeit in hard copy.
She said: “No matter how much you try to do practical [learning], inevitably a lot of what you offer is going to use the internet. Lots of our interventions are with programmes that are screenbased. It’s important for the children to be hearing teachers’ voices, we have two live lessons a day - phonics in the morning and story time in the afternoon.
“We have been doing additional paper packs that parents can pick up for non-contact collection or delivery if they need, to support children’s learning at home so they can still practice their skills and have access to resources.”
The Department for Education is providing laptops and tablets to schools to help children and families access remote learning, and is helping disadvantaged children to access an internet connection.
However, provision is only open to disadvantaged children in years 3 through to 11, who do not have access to a device and whose face-to-face learning has been disrupted.
Miss Tumelty stressed the importance of early years education.
She said: “Infant education and reception years is where children learn to read, where they learn to write.
“They learn the basics and develop understanding, and we find that children who miss out on those basics and fundamental parts of learning will continue to struggle. This early stage is vital to help them succeed.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The year groups targeted by this scheme were set following conversations with school leaders and on the basis that children in younger years would be unlikely to be working on a laptop or tablet independently.”