No Child Left Behind – Maths Champion Bobby Seagull Campaigns To End The Digital Divide

More children must have access to digital technology at home if the achievement gap is not to widen even more . Bobby Seagull urges people to join in the campaign

Bobby Seagull on Universit y Challenge — Bobby Seagull, secondary school teacher and maths media star

‘Teaching online is problematic,’ said Seagull. ‘ We assume children have access to devices and broadband but up to a million children in the UK either don’t have access to a device or to broadband, or if they do, their broadband speed may not be fast enough to stream lessons live.’

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      string(5851) "’72 per cent of schoolchildren who were unable to access remote learning lived in the poorest households in their country. In upper-middle-income countries, schoolchildren from the poorest households account for up to 86 per cent of students unable to access remote learning.’ The authors commented that the ‘data suggests this has left at least a third of the world’s schoolchildren—463 million children globally—unable to access remote learning during school closures.’Impact on higher educationIt was not just school children who suffered. It extended to university education too. 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The main reasons were socio-economic barriers (79%) and uncertainty in day-to-day life caused by the pandemic (74%) which has impacted on students’ motivation and resilience. 70% of OUP’s experts concluded the shift to digital learning has raised concerns about student wellbeing, and 85% believed that learners from disadvantaged backgrounds have fallen behind their more advantaged peers.Neurodivergent learners and children and students with additional physical, behavioural or cognitive learning needs have fared particularly badly. In the UK, Ofsted’s November report found that children with additional educational needs and disabilities had been ‘seriously affected’ across all age groups, both in their care and education, losing vital support including speech and language services.    Recommendations   The OUP’s report proposes these actions:  1. 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Digital Learning

A Retrospective On Lockdown

14 May 2021

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Leadership Briefing 9.08(104)"
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      string(5032) "Leadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.YOUNG DIGITAL MAKERSKeywordsYoung people,digital makers,digital divide,child, learning,digitaltechnology,apps, games,websites,attitudes, out-of-school activities SummaryThis report by Nesta points to a new digital divide, showing that for every child learning tomake things using digital technology, over 60 are being left behind. The report maps interest,opportunities and support in the UK – both in and out of school – for young people to learnhow to use digital technologies to make their own apps, games, websites as well as editingmusic, videos, images and so on.This report explores the emerging field of digital making for young people in the UK. It charts theorganisations providing opportunities for young people to make things with technology; looks at howthese opportunities relate to what young people learn in school; and explores the attitudes of youngpeople, parents and teachers towards digital making.The report finds that while over 8 million children are eager to get to grips with making things withdigital technology, there were just 130,800 face-to-face opportunities available for them to learnoutside of the classroom in the last year. The school’s role is important in developing these skillsand interests, but this needs to be supplemented by out-of-school activities at home and in clubs:providing the space, encouragement and resources for the next generation to experiment and createusing digital tools.With demand greatly outstripping supply, the report warns that the UK is neglecting its digital needsand the skills the economy will need in the future.It argues that the UK is at risk of the next generation growing up as passive digital consumers ratherthan confident creators and makers of digital products.The report found that while many young people report dabbling in tech – 83 per cent have madesomething online – a third (33 per cent) do so less than once a week and almost a fifth (17 per cent)have never done so.Key Findings: ■ 82 per cent of young people say they are interested in digital making. However, half of youngpeople make things with digital technology less than once a week or never. Parents areoverwhelmingly supportive of digital making. 89 per cent think it is a worthwhile activity for theirchildren. 73 per cent encourage their children to make things with technology. ■ We identified 130,800 opportunities to experience digital making provided by the organisationsWeek Commencing 16th March 2015http://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/young-digital-makers-march-2015.pdfhttps://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/359483/DFE-RR286_-_Are_free_schools_using_innovative_approaches.pdfLeadership BriefingLeadership Briefing – www.teachingtimes.comReports Summaries – a weeklyservice of essential summaries,in-depth reports and criticalanalysis that’s new and relevantto education, linked to originalsource documents.surveyed. This is a long way from providing for the interest shown by 82 per cent of our survey,which represents a possible 8.2 million school age children and young people in the UK. ■ Digital making is powered not just by money, but also by volunteers. Two thirds of theorganisations identified said they relied on volunteers to do their work. ■ Only half of teachers who teach ICT or computing report being confident in teaching thecurriculum.Key Recommendations: ■ The high levels of interest in digital making amongst young people and parents need to becapitalised on further. ■ Young people need to be supported as digital makers across the UK, not just in London and areasthat have high provision. ■ Non-professionals – such as volunteers, parents, teachers, and young people themselves – needto be mobilised. ■ There needs to be greater access to a variety of making opportunities catering for a wider varietyof young people and their different interests, ages and genders. ■ Clear pathways to excellence should be built to grow young people’s ambitions as digital makersand help them fulfill their potential, in and out of school. ■ Schools must exploit their potential as a hub for digital making opportunities, work with informallearning organisations, raise parents’ awareness and recruit volunteers. ■ Digital making organisations need to be supported to grow sustainably through new and existingpartnerships with grassroots organisations and private companies.WEB LINKYoung Digital Makershttp://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/young-digital-makers-march-2015.pdf"
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Leadership

Young Digital Makers

11 Mar 2015

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      string(3338) "Online tuition can be an effective way to teach disadvantaged pupils during and after school closures, according to this report by the National Centre for Social Research, which aimed to help disadvantaged youngsters after the first lockdown in England.The report evaluates the reach of the National Online Tutoring Pilot, commissioned by the EEF in partnership with the Sutton Trust, Impetus and Nesta, to support disadvantaged pupils’ learning during and after partial school closures in the first national lockdown. Its aim was to test the feasibility and promise of online tutoring to support learning while pupils, in particular those from low-income backgrounds, were unable to access school in the normal way. It was the first study to look solely at online delivery in England.In total, the pilot covered 1,425 pupils in 65 schools, with 9,800 tuition sessions delivered. The vast majority of students were aged between 14 and 16 and studying for their GCSEs, and most received weekly one-to-one sessions in maths, English and science.According to the evaluation, online tutoring had “high reach”, and led to reported improvements in learners’ confidence, engagement with education and preparedness for the new school year.Eighty-seven per cent of pupils said that they would like to carry on with their tutoring, while 76 per cent said they enjoyed learning more than they did before.However, access to equipment and reliable internet connections were found to be key barriers to participation, with almost half (48 per cent) of schools reporting lack of equipment as a challenge.The report also highlights challenges, in particular the lack of equipment or good internet connection which meant too many students were unable to access online learning. Bridging that ‘digital divide’ must remain a national priority.Key Findings:Delivering online tuition during the school ‘closures’ was feasible: Reach was high considering the circumstances and providers, schools, tutors and learners quickly adapted to what was a new learning model for most.Learners enjoyed the tuition and there were perceived benefits for learning: All stakeholder groups felt that learners benefited from the tailored support. They saw improvements in learners’ confidence, engagement with education and preparedness for new school year.Relationships were crucial in supporting take-up and engagement: Investing time in building rapport helped tutors to motivate learners and tailor the support. Providers and school staff worked to identify the best ways to secure parents’ and learners’ buy-in, but were unable to reach all families during the school ‘closures’.Access to equipment and reliable internet connections were key barriers to participation, particularly for home-based learners: Solutions included providing equipment and inviting learners to take part at school.Online tuition lacked some of the benefits of in-person delivery: While the offer of online tuition was highly attractive during the COVID-19 pandemic, most learners would prefer in-person tutoring if given the choice. Tutors found it more challenging to build rapport with learners online, and technical challenges risked disrupting delivery.Link: The National Online Tuition Pilot"
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Leadership

The National Online Tuition Pilot

15 Feb 2021

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      string(3557) "online BBC jam service (www.bbc.co.uk/jam), specifically designed for home use; andthe internet contains a vast array of invaluablesources of research, help with revision and theopportunity for students to communicate andcollaborate in their learning.It is ironic, then, that the impact of the digitaldivide actually grows as a school develops agreater reliance on students being able to accessonline learning from outside the classroom,whether via the school network, a learningplatform or internet-based learning resources.And it will continue to grow unless action istaken to ensure that every student also hashome access.Is there emerging goodpractice?There is a strong correlation between schoolsthat have high levels of e-confidence and thosethat have taken steps to address the digitaldivide as it affects the families in theircommunity. This is hardly surprising. It isunreasonable to expect a school ICT strategy toencompass the wider learning environment thatincludes the home until the school has fullyrealised their plans to equip the school buildingand campus, and until ICT has becomeembedded in the pedagogy of the school, notjust the physical infrastructure.However, there are many schools that havearrived at this stage, and these schools deploy arange of strategies to help ensure that all pupilshave access to both hardware and connectivity athome and, where appropriate, elsewhere in thecommunity. They also often proactively extend thataccess to the wider family. Typical strategiesinclude:■ A switch of procurement strategy from fixeddesktop computers and ICT suites to mobilecomputer technologies operating within acampus-wide wireless environment.■ The implementation of school policies thatencourage students to book a school laptopout for the evening/weekend/holiday.■ e-Learning programmes that involve parentsin making regular donations so that studentscan have home access to a wide range oflearning resources, including the allocationof a device for every student, which can bea laptop, tablet, PDA or home PC. Theaverage size of this donation can vary from£3.00 to £6.00 a week, depending on thegeneral wealth of the community and thecost of the package of e-learning resources.■ Where equity of access is the abidingprinciple (and it is a principle that the e-Learning Foundation believes is criticallyimportant), then schools ensure theymaximise Gift Aid tax relief and grantopportunities from the e-LearningFoundation.The impact of the digital divide is a subtleform of discrimination, hitting children fromlow-income families, single parent families andthose with limited awareness of the growingrole of technology in a modern educationsystem. Schools have the power to make asignificant impact on the level of access totechnology to support learners beyond theclassroom, often with very limited additionalinvestment. But they have to know they havegot a problem and they have to be willing todo something about it!■ Valerie Thompson is Chief Executive ofthe e-Learning Foundation.‘Schools have the power to make a significant impacton the level of access to technology to supportlearners beyond the classroom, often with very limitedadditional investment’Where to go for help■ Contact the e-Learning Foundation for adviceand information on our grants programme.■ Contact your Local Authority to see if yourschool is eligible for some of the £60m HomeSchool programme, launched in Autumn 2006."
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Digital Learning

The digital divide – and why it won’t go away

15 Apr 2013

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      string(386) "... non-essential retail and pubs. But, the social consequences, it is argued,  are  too great for disadvantaged children stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.It certainly  is  truethat online learning tended to work  bestwith those middle class children with kit and connectivity and engaged parentssupervising them. Yet ..."
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      string(5648) "The government is being very coy now about whether schools should return at all after the holidays and what will  likely be a full national lockdown,  or at least the imposition of Tier Fours across most of the country. This, just  one week after threatening schools and their local authorities with legal action if they  dared to stay closed after Coronorvirus took hold of their populations. This is how it is with this government; they ring out  rigid, unthinking mantras like ‘the schools must stay open’ and ‘we cant cancel Christmas’ only to recant when the situation demands more flexibility.Their defence is ‘ events dear boy, events’.  But when it comes to schools the government has consistently flouted one of its foremost principles to ‘follow the science’, as  study after study has been  showing that schools and children are major vectors of the disease.The lockdowns that don’t shut the schools tend to fail and it is because schools – particularly secondary schools but primary  also seem to have a role – are close knit, enclosed, communities  that bring people together in very large numbers. Look at disastrous secondary attendance rates in secondary schools  in tier 3 schools. This vector has started knocking out primary school teachers who have teenage children.In terms of ‘he science’ schools have always been more dangerous than non-essential retail and pubs. But, the social consequences, it is argued,  are  too great for disadvantaged children stuck on the wrong side of the digital divide.It certainly  is  truethat online learning tended to work  bestwith those middle class children with kit and connectivity and engaged parentssupervising them. Yet It would seem that  the government’s attempts to ‘level-up’ the playingfield by providing  laptops to those thatneed them has fallen, say heads,  woefullyshort,  and the programme seems  now to have been cut considerably.Even if they got the kit, the connectivity isn’t necessarily there, nor might be the motivation to the same extent as their middle class peers. Therefore, the argument goes,  schools have to stay open and spread the disease …and also, by the way, we have to stick to exams, even heavily compromised ones, because ’we must have  exams’.So fixated is the government on their dogma that they have asked  schools  to become  mass-testing centres, using untrained volunteers to administer and process  complex tests which would still miss  50 per cent of highly infectious cases. There must be a better, more creative way of  recognising that schools are major vectors if the virus and that not schooling the under-privileged is too high a social price to pay.So here is our Modest Proposal! Why don’t schools, when they do return,  send home  to study those children who have the kit, connectivity and support at home and keep the ones that don’t at school!  Or, use Pupil Premium pupils as the group that stays in schools, with some exceptions either way.In this way the children that most needdirect contact with teachers and a formal support structure the most – the lessadvantaged children ( read working-class) – would get privileged access toteacher resources and could even make up some of the ground they have lostIt would also, of course, provide a lower density  of human beings, more easily socially distanced,  in a safer environment.Those middle-class children with the kitand connectivity are also most likely to have parents in white collar jobs andable to more easily supervise children at home…although after 14 is closesupervision really required? Children could form study bubbles with one or twoclose friends at home – perhaps congregated around the child with the bestfacilities. There could even be a little social engineering here – with less well-off children studying at home or in street hubs alongside their better-off peers.  It would need careful negotiation but if mixed-ability teaching can work in school, why not at homeAnother benefit of this Modest Proposal is that teachers could discern  from the residual groups at school, those most able to  benefit from access to upgraded kit and connectivity,  and so target scarce resources  at these children.‘Oh, but wont the poor children stuck at school feel stigmatised?’ Maybe, but any child with a special social or learning need’ is  treated differently and is aware of this , from free school meals onwards. It is simply a way of realistically recognising the social and digital divide that exists, and doing something about it. It is hard-nosed, positive discrimination.Once a week ….possibly even a Saturday –children working at home could meet their teachers for small group or personaltutoring – grammar and private schools study on Saturday after all. Or, itcould be an  afternoon or a day when theschool-based children have a day off – one day off is a lot easier to managethan every day out of school.There are two other reasons why this Modest Proposal is worth considering.  Headteachers wouldn’t  have to ask permission to do this from a  government trapped in its own red-lines and dogmas – schools are technically open and just managing learning in a more Covid-secure way.Secondly, it could become a permanent feature of our schooling, with very positive impacts for children with less cultural and financial capital at their"
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Blogs

A Modest Proposal For Schools After Christmas

23 Dec 2020

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