Children: Quarantine

(asked on 21st October 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether the Government plans to provide financial assistance for low income families of children sent home from school to self-isolate during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 10th November 2020

As schools and their kitchens are now open, they should provide healthy, nutritious meal options for all children who are in school, and meals should be available free of charge to all infant pupils and pupils who meet the benefits-related free school meals (FSM) eligibility criteria. If children are eligible for benefit-related FSM but are self-isolating, we expect catering providers to be in a strong position to support any eligible pupils through food parcels, be those daily or weekly. We have put guidance in place for schools on how they can support children these circumstances, which is complemented by advice from the schools food trade organisation LACA and Public Health England on what a good food parcel should comprise. Our latest guidance for schools is set out here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance/covid-19-free-school-meals-guidance-for-schools.

We believe that, through the hard work of teachers and staff, pupils will continue to receive the education they deserve, whatever the circumstances. The department has invested over £195 million to support remote education and access to online social care, delivering over 220,000 laptops and tablets, during the summer term, for disadvantaged children who would not otherwise have access to a digital device. The department is adding to this support by making over 340,000 additional laptops and tablets available to support disadvantaged children that might face disruption to their education. Since September, over 100,000 of these have been delivered to schools.

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