Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what financial support is being made available to schools which must return to online learning as a result of a covid-19 outbreak in the school.

In the last academic year, the Government invested over £100 million to help schools and young people continue their education at home and access social care services. This included investment of over £14 million on technical support which allows schools to use cloud based education platforms, nearly £6 million to support a new EdTech demonstrator school network, and over £85 million to provide laptops, tablets and 4G wireless routers to children who would not otherwise have access.

The Department is also making an initial further 150,000 laptops and tablets available to schools in the event that their ability to deliver face to face education is disrupted during the new academic year. These should be used to enable disadvantaged children in year 3 to year 11 to continue to access remote education. We are also funding expert technical support to help schools apply for support to access one of two free-to-use digital education platforms to enable online teaching: G Suite for Education or Office 365 Education.

Schools can also spend their catch up premium on contingency planning for remote learning, for example purchasing additional devices or more textbooks. The Education Endowment Foundation COVID-19 Support Guide includes support for schools in how to support effective remote learning and access to technology.