Children: Coronavirus

(asked on 9th July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will publish the software specifications for laptops purchased by his Department to support vulnerable children and children from low income household during the covid-19 outbreak with regard to (a) installed operating systems, (b) software programmes (c) and virus and privacy software.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 14th July 2020

The Government has committed over £100 million to support vulnerable and disadvantaged children in England to access remote education and online social care services, including by providing brand new laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers. The devices have been built specifically for this programme.

Our supplier, Computacenter have published the specifications of the devices, which can be found here: https://www.computacenter.com/uk/uk/supporting-remote-education-and-social-care/choosing-devices

The laptops and tablets have settings to make sure they are safe and secure online. The virus protection is provided by Windows Defender that is built into Windows 10 - this is configured to update and scan the devices on a regular basis.

For safeguarding, the Department has installed Cisco Umbrella which is configured to block access to inappropriate web content. Cisco Umbrella is also backed up by the use of the Microsoft Intune mobile device management solution which allows remote management and configuration of devices to ensure that the safeguarding applied cannot be uninstalled or bypassed.

Schools can also apply their own settings and software to match the education resources they use and to fit their own policies.

Local authority social care teams also have the opportunity to add settings and software to the devices to support engagement with social workers, help provide access to other services and prevent social isolation. In addition, links to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection website and advice on using the internet safely are pre-loaded onto the device.

The Government is also providing technical support to schools to get them set up on digital education platforms. The Department is providing expert training and technical support for schools to set up the free-to-use platforms, G Suite for Education or Office 365 Education. These platforms have the potential to improve pupils’ outcomes and transform how schools operate even when their doors are open to all.

To ensure that schools and colleges are able to make the best use of the technology available to them, the Department has launched the EdTech Demonstrator programme. EdTech Demonstrators are schools and colleges across the country who exemplify excellence in their use of technology. Support available includes training on how to use digital education platforms effectively (such as Google G Suite for Education, Microsoft Office 365, etc) to support pupils' education and to communicate effectively with the school community. It also covers related content on digital safeguarding, supporting pupils and teacher wellbeing remotely and using technology to help support the needs of students with SEND.

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