BBC to broadcast educational programmes

THE BBC will help children throughout lockdown by broadcasting educational lessons on TV every day.

The announcement was made after Prime Minister Boris Johnson ordered schools to close to all but critical worker children and vulnerable children, as he put the country into lockdown on Monday, January 4.

The majority of pupils across the country have now moved to remote learning, which will run until after the February half term at the earliest.

From next week, the BBC has said it will show curriculum-based programmes on TV, in a move to help homeschooling parents, including BBC Bitesize Daily and BBC Live Lessons.

It means that children can continue learning at home, even if they don’t have the internet.

Educational programmes such as Our School, Celebrity Supply Teacher, Horrible Histories, Art Ninja and Operation Ouch will all be broadcast.

BBC director-general Tim Dave said: “Ensuring children across the UK have the opportunity to continue to follow the appropriate core parts of their nation’s school curriculum has been a key priority for the BBC throughout this past year.

“Education is absolutely vital – the BBC is here to play its part and I’m delighted that we have been able to bring this to audiences so swiftly.”

For primary school pupils, there will be three hours of programming every weekday on CBBC from 9am, and at least two hours for secondary pupils on BBC Two with programming to support the GCSE curriculum, including adaptations of Shakespeare plays alongside science, history and factual titles.

There are also a host of programmes for pre-schoolers on the Iplayer, including Numberblocks and Alphablocks.