Thread: Lots of talk again about live v on demand lessons & all sorts of political hyperbole. 10 months from our first lockdown one thing hasn’t changed.

Every school age child in the country needs 2 things:

1. A decent laptop
2. Fast broadband to access lessons

There is little point in arguing about the best approach or berating certain schools until this basic need is addressed. This helps nobody and distracts from the fact that not every child has a decent laptop or fast broadband

We would never accept an argument about textbooks v worksheets if the advocates of textbooks planned to tell 20% or 30% of the least well off children that they won’t be given a text book anyway. So why argue about online approaches if we are unwilling to address the lack of IT?

The govt identified a need to get 1.3 million devices out to young people. An impressive sounding number. So far, 10 months in, they have got 700,000 out. So that’s 600,000 young people the govt has identified still without. That’s 600,000 we know can’t access live lessons

But even 1.3 million is not enough. That number was identified by the govt from an estimate based on numbers receiving FSM. Schools were never asked:

1. How many students don’t have their own laptop?
2. How many don’t have fast broadband?

Schools know but haven’t been asked.

To learn properly, every sibling in every house needs a device. In my trust, we received 373 devices from DfE - that’s a good number. Unfortunately there were another 578 children in top of that who did not have their own device. The trust has bought the additional number

Not every school or trust can afford to do that. A brilliant junior school down the road received 17 devices but there were more than 95 other children who did not have a device. It took a superb community appeal spearheaded by @HJS_Headteacher to fill that gap

I have spoken to over 50 Heads and CEOs in the last month and not one has said the supply of devices from DfE has got anywhere near providing every young person with a device. So spare us the lectures and the emotive language until EVERY young person has a laptop on which to work

But don’t take it from me, here’s @suttontrust’s Learning in Lockdown report published last week. https://www.suttontrust.com/our-research/learning-in-lockdown/

It rightly identifies the difference in provision between state and independent, something gleefully seized upon by some in the media and used to show how poor state schools are

And goes on to show a widening gap, based on background, in the learning different young people are receiving. This gap is the very reason most of us went into teaching. This is what motivates us to get up every day

So what is the deepest and most fundamental cause of this gap?

Lack of an appropriate device.

Don’t take it from me, take it from @suttontrust

So distract all you want by trying to drive wedges between different parts of the sector and use your hyperbolic language. But anyone who is serious about the horrific widening gaps should focus solely on getting a laptop in the hand of every kid in the country

And this is exactly what @suttontrust says. Recommendation number one. Laptop and internet access for every young person who needs it.

Every argument about online pedagogy is a waste of energy and breath if it distracts from all the young people who can’t access it anyway. Every article that pits one group against another is a wasted opportunity to report on the real issue - the lack of tech

I have huge respect for every single person in the sector who has fought tooth and nail to do their best for young people and continue to do so. To everyone involved in @OakNational/ @matthewhood who have done incredible things.

@HJS_Headteacher & his community for their incredible efforts to raise money & buy tech. The trustees @TEAL_Trust who backed our plans. @ModernCassie, whose small school serves a really disadvantaged community, has nowhere near enough laptops but battles for every single extra

And right across the country there are hundreds of other schools doing similar. There are a lot of really unhelpful distractions, like the S of S and sections of the media simply contradicting the evidence from EEF and Ofsted on remote learning.

All of this is peripheral though compared to the single biggest issue in the system & the single biggest driver of disadvantage - that tens of thousands of young people cannot access remote learning from home. It is an inconvenient truth for some, but it is the truth nonetheless

And fresh off the press from @Ofstednews today:

1. Inappropriateness of devices and access to laptops
2. Poor internet connectivity
3. Having to share devices with siblings

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