On Tuesday 18th May 2021 the Education Policy Institute hosted a webinar on digital learning for recovery: ‘Towards recovery: Embedding digital learning in education catch-up strategy’.
You can watch the recording of the event here:
With all pupils back in the classroom and the government’s vaccination programme underway the focus of policymakers has rightly shifted to understanding the inevitably, large, and unequally distributed, learning losses caused by the pandemic. Lack of access to a digital device is likely to be one of the major factors in this unequal distribution, and it is likely this particularly accounts for learning losses in the early stages of the pandemic. However, since then, over 1.2m devices have been delivered to disadvantaged children and 4G routers and mobile data are now available on a demand basis – this presents a real opportunity to utilise digital learning as part of an education recovery strategy.
Some catch-up initiatives are already using technology to deliver their provision. The National Tutoring Programme (NTP) which aims to provide one-to-one or small-group tuition to disadvantaged pupils will be supported by online provision to ensure as many children and young people as possible can benefit from it. Summer schools have also been identified as a key component of the government’s more immediate catch-up plans and the Oak National Academy has already committed to deliver online learning lessons over the summer. As with the NTP, this is with the intention of reaching as many pupils as possible.
This event brought together school leaders and policymakers to examine the current and possible solutions for education recovery enabled by technology and discussed how the over 1.2m devices and the additional £302m recovery pupil premium can be used effectively.
The discussion covered how digital learning can support the monitoring of pupil progress and which pupils should be targeted for a remote learning catch-up offer. The session also reflected on how technology can be utilised effectively to improve wellbeing and catch-up offers and how blended learning can support longer-term education recovery in schools.
