Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 30th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment he has made of the quality of education for children receiving remote tuition due to the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 8th July 2020

The Department is continuing to assess the impact of school closure on children and young people’s educational attainment.

We have published a comprehensive range of advice and guidance to support schools during this time. This includes a list of high-quality online resources, which have been assessed with support from some of the country’s leading educational experts, to help pupils learn at home.

We have worked with schools to produce case studies guidance on remote education practice. This guidance provides an opportunity for schools to learn from each other's emerging practice as they develop their own approaches.

We are supporting sector-led initiatives such as the Oak National Academy. This new enterprise has been created by 40 teachers from schools across England. It will provide 180 video lessons for free each week, across a broad range of subjects, for every year group from Reception through to year 10. By 28 June, 4.1 million unique users had accessed the Oak National Academy website and 14.7 million lessons had been viewed.

Additionally, the BBC has developed resources for families as part of a comprehensive new education package, which is now available on TV and online at BBC Bitesize.

We have committed over £100 million to boost remote education, this includes: providing devices and internet access for those who need it most, ensuring every school that wants it has access to free, expert technical support to get set up on Google for Education or Microsoft’s Office 365 Education, and offering peer support from schools and colleges leading the way with the use of education technology.

We expect all pupils to return to school in the autumn, and the Department published guidance on 2 July. Given the possibility that groups of pupils need to self-isolate, such as for a local lockdown, all schools will also be expected to have remote education contingency plans in place by the end of September. The guidance sets out what is expected from schools for their remote education provision.

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