Homework

(asked on 28th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made on the impact of the home learning environment on children's school outcomes; and what steps he is taking to support children's learning at home.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 31st March 2022

The department recognises that teachers and leaders have been working incredibly hard to provide high quality on-site and remote education, with much being achieved during the pandemic.

The department has announced nearly £5 billion for a multi-year education recovery plan which includes high quality tutoring, world class training for teachers and early years practitioners, additional funding for schools, and extending time in colleges by 40 hours. We are supporting the most disadvantaged, vulnerable and those with the least time left in education, wherever they live, to make up for education lost during the pandemic and are carefully monitoring the progress being made by children in school.

Through the department’s Get Help with Technology programme, we have delivered over 1.9 million laptops and tablets to schools, trusts, local authorities and further education providers for disadvantaged children and young people as part of a £520 million government investment to support access to remote education and online social care services.

These laptops and tablets are intended to give schools the flexibility to provide remote education support and can continue to be used in the longer term either in the classroom or from home.

The priority should always be for schools to deliver high quality face-to-face education to all pupils and remote education should only ever be considered as a short-term measure and as a last resort where in person attendance is not possible.

When in-person attendance in school is either not possible or contrary to government guidance schools should continue to provide remote education to allow children and young people who are well enough to keep pace with their education.

The department will publish updated guidance to support schools with remote education and will continue to work with the sector on this, learning from the many examples of excellent practice developed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An appropriate home education environment is also essential for parents who opt to provide their children with elective home education. The government is committed to a form of local authority registration for children not in school as well as a duty on local authorities to provide support to home educators when it is required. Further details on this are in the Children Not In School consultation response which was published on 3 February 2022. We hope to legislate on this measure at the next suitable opportunity.

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