Children: Computers
(asked on 7th December 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of (1) the total number, and (2) the percentage, of schoolchildren in (a) England, and (b) Leeds, currently without access to a laptop at home.
The department has provided laptops, tablets and connectivity support to schools and social care services during the COVID-19 outbreak to enable them to support disadvantaged and vulnerable children. Over the summer, over 220,000 laptops and tablets were provided to allow schools and social care services to support disadvantaged pupils in year 10, children with a social worker, and care leavers.
This term, the department has bolstered this support by providing laptops and tablets to schools where face to face education has been disrupted in order to enable them to support pupils in years 3 to 11. We will have made over 500,000 devices available by the end of the year and invested nearly £200 million to support remote education. The devices and connectivity support are provided to local authorities, trusts and schools. They are best placed to know which pupils need access and are responsible for onward distribution.
The department publishes delivery data periodically. We therefore have two snapshots, summer term as of 27 August and current term as of 23 October.
As of 27 August 2020, 3,016 laptops and tablets had been delivered to Leeds Council and schools. Delivery data reflecting support provided over the summer is published here:
Given that devices for non-maintained schools were provided to academy trusts, and that these can span multiple local authorities, we cannot provide a precise figure for the number of devices received by schools in Leeds during summer term.
Information on the laptops and tablets provided this term to schools, local authorities and academy trusts as of 23 October 2020 is published below. We have delivered 105,508 nationally: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/929064/Ad-hoc_stats_note_shipped_data_231020_FINAL.pdf
We will be publishing further delivery data after the end of term.
For deliveries during both the summer and autumn term, the department has allocated a number of laptops and tablets to each school. This term, schools are invited to order from this allocation when face to face education is disrupted.
To arrive at this allocation of devices, the department used data on the number of pupils eligible for free school meals in each school. The department expects that pupils’ device needs will be met to some extent by existing school laptops and tablets that the school already owns.
To identify the number of children who require support to access the internet, the department used data on pupils eligible for free school meals in each school, taking into consideration estimations by Ofcom and reflecting that some pupils would already have access to a private internet connection.
Schools, local authorities and academy trusts can request additional devices if their allocation from the department does not meet their needs. These requests can be submitted to covid.technology@education.gov.uk.