Learning in lockdown is challenging for all families, with parents trying to balance work with supporting their children’s education.

These challenges increase immensely for families which are struggling to access learning, whether through a lack of technology or lack of basic materials such as paper and pens.

Action is urgently needed, so I am very pleased to welcome the ‘Help a Child to Learn’ campaign from the Daily Mirror and National Education Union (NEU), supported by Viking, which has donated £1 million of members’ funding to supply the learning materials that children and young people need to study at home.

This will provide vouchers to schools to buy materials for pupils and help teachers get children who are struggling engaged with learning while at home.

While welcome, it is worrying that this campaign is needed.

Shadow Education Secretary Kate Green s (
Image:
PA)

An NEU survey has found that 95% of responding teachers said some of their students have limited or no access to learning resources at home.

The government has had ten months since the first lockdown was announced to address the impact that family income is having on children’s ability to learn remotely but this support has not been forthcoming.

Over 423,000 of the laptops and tablets that Gavin Williamson has promised to deliver have not yet arrived with schools or families and basic materials are being delivered by schools or individual teachers with little central support. 

Before the pandemic hit the learning gap between pupils from the most and least advantaged backgrounds was 18 months at GCSE.

Pupils who are struggling to learn from home without the materials they need will be falling further behind their peers.

Our Help a Child to Learn appeal will provide vital school supplies to children during lockdown

This campaign will provide incredibly important support for families during lockdown, but we also need to look now at how to make up for the learning that children and young people have lost during the pandemic.

This is one part of a bigger picture.

There are 4.2 million children in the UK living in poverty, with around seven in ten of these children living in households where at least one person works.

A long-term solution to child poverty is clearly needed.

The government must focus on delivering security for family finances as we recover from this pandemic.

To donate to the appeal please click here