Church gives help to disadvantaged pupils

An Aberdeenshire church has donated money to help secondary school pupils join in with online lessons during lockdown.

Members of the congregation at Banchory West Church raised £5,000 in just 12 days and made the money available to buy laptops for pupils without access to technology.

Staff at Banchory Academy were “taken aback” by the cheque, which will cover the cost of at least 18 machines.

The Rev Tony Stephen said members were excited they were able to offer “practical” help after coronavirus led to school closures across the country.

He added: “We always want to help Banchory Academy as the teachers and staff support young people in our community.

“As soon as lockdown started we got in touch to ask what we could do and the head teacher Judith Wight told us that there were kids struggling to access online learning and that a lack of equipment was the biggest barrier.

“We discussed it as a congregation and everyone agreed the most practical thing we could do was donate money to the school to buy Chromebook laptops, which are apparently very effective.”

The Rev Tony Stephen of Banchory West Church