Thousands of Pupils Receive Laptops

More than 31,000 devices given to Yorkshire's council-run schools following closure due to the Covid lockdown.

15:58 15 January 2021

The Department of Education has distributed 5,935 laptops to council-run schools in Yorkshire as children start homeschooling following the latest national Covid-19 lockdown. 

 

The initiative is part of the Get Help with Technology Programme that has already provided more than 31,000 devices to Yorkshire's council-run schools since the pandemic. 

 

Of this number, only 241 devices were given to North Yorkshire County Council's 264 schools. Former Scarborough headteacher Anne Swift says that the numbers are “not good enough”.

 

She added: “The definition of vulnerable children has been widened, so primary schools in particular are having to have conversations with parents about whether their child really needs to be at school,” said Ms Swift, an officer at the National Education Union’s North Yorkshire branch.

 

“Schools are having to juggle teaching in schools with remote teaching at the same time. That brings about questions of staffing.”

 

Dr Helen Davey, headteacher of Willow Tree Primary School in Harrogate, exchoes her sentiments. She said: “We do have children at home doing their school work on a phone or sharing one device between three or four because we do not have laptops to give them at the moment,”