Covid-19: Educational Gaps

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, since schools closed to most pupils, teachers and support staff have been working hard to keep schools open for vulnerable children. However, as the noble Lord makes clear, only 15% of vulnerable children were taking up this offer. Yes, we are keenly looking at all the options to ensure that particularly disadvantaged children are given an opportunity to catch up on their learning; those in year 10 who are disadvantaged will have access to a laptop or device as part of the £100 million package that I outlined earlier.

[Lord Lucas (Con)]

My Lords, a lot of schools have gained considerable expertise in online education and are keen to pitch in to help provide that over the summer holidays and in after-school hours. Will my noble friend commit resources to ensure that this help is efficiently organised and delivered, perhaps through the good offices of regional school commissioners?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, as part of that £100 million, the Oak National Academy was set up as a result of 40 teachers putting 180 video lessons per week online. Some 2.3 million users have accessed that service and 8.6 million lessons have been viewed. We are pleased to see how online learning may perhaps be changing education provision for the future, but we will look at all options to support children—not just for the summer, but into the autumn term as we know that there is a lot to catch up on.