Our work tackling digital poverty continues
News article from September 9, 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact our lives, we are pleased to announce that our digital poverty project with the Raspberry Pi Foundation is continuing into the 2020/21 academic year. This means we will continue to support schools and families with access to technology so that whether at school or at home, pupils are ready to learn and catch up after lockdown.
Now more than ever, children face serious long term consequences to their education and life chances. School closures have created a home learning disadvantage gap which will continue as localised school lockdowns become a reality. Without access to technology and the internet, disadvantaged pupils risk falling even further behind their peers. But with the support of SHS and partners, we can ensure that no child is isolated from online learning – so that all pupils have the opportunity to achieve their best potential.
Our Children at Home, Ready to Learn pilot project began during lockdown. Supported by The Bloomfield Trust, the Raspberry Pi Foundation provided personal computers to SHS families, with the Pears Foundation and other SHS partners enabling SHS to supply families with data so they could get online. Meanwhile, our IT Manager provided technical support to ensure families could assemble the equipment and start accessing their education.
In June 2020, a family supported by our project shared their experience of how digital poverty prevents home learning with the Guardian. Later that month, BT, one of the world’s leading communication service companies, began directly supporting our initiative by providing SHS families with six months of Wi-Fi connectivity.
We are huge advocates of collaborative working and making things possible – that’s how we delivered over 130 online learning kits to families at schools we support, ahead of the Government’s own school laptop delivery. As our work becomes ever-more relevant for the people we support, we know the impact of school closures on children is only just beginning to show. But School-Home Support will be here, supporting pupils, families and schools every step of the way.
If you’d like to know more about how we can support your school using the government’s coronavirus catch up premium, please get in touch today.