I’m pleased to report that by the end of December well over 227 children in Rutland and Melton had received laptops as part of the Government’s work to support children in accessing home learning. An additional 284 children across Leicestershire have also received laptops, some of whom will have been in Melton and Market Harborough.
These laptops have been delivered through local schools, academy trusts and Local Authorities – who each have their own allocation based on the latest available data, including:
- The number of children in years 3 to 11 (16 to 19 education providers will be contacted in the 2021 Spring term when the service is extended to years 12 and 13).
- Free school meals data.
- An estimate of the number of devices a school or college already has.
On top of this, the Department for Education has confirmed that schools will be given extra funding to provide food parcels or meals to pupils eligible for free school meals. Where this cannot be offered and no local solution reached, a national voucher scheme will be put in place so that every eligible pupil can continue to access free school meals while their school remains closed – with the cost of the scheme met by the Government.
The Department for Education has also provided our local schools with 4G wireless routers that they can lend to children without broadband.
In addition, the Government is working with mobile operators to help schools ensure their pupils have access to the internet for remote learning. Pupils may be able to benefit from free increases to their mobile data if they are a customer of either:
- EE
- Three
- Sky Mobile
- SMARTY
- Tesco Mobile
- Virgin Mobile
