Monday News Round-Up With The AIM Group

There’s a lot going on at the moment, and it can be hard to keep track of all the current headlines in our industry, so here’s The AIM Groups round-up of all the latest news from the education industry! 

Today’s top news stories in the education industry: 

Worries about Covid has led to a 38% increase in parents' homeschooling their children 

A survey of 151 councils by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (The ADCS) has estimated that over 75,000 children were homeschooled in October, a rise of over 20,000. 

When asked on the most significant reason behind this change, worries about Covid-19 was the most popular reasoning. Another top reason was because parents had enjoyed having their children at home during the school closures between March and July. 

On the other hand, government statistics indicate that 8.9 million children registered in schools in England in 2020. 

Chairwomen of the ADCS Educational Achievement Policy Committee, Gail Trolley, supports those who make the decision to homeschool their child, but suggested that with the lack of safeguarding, it is crucial that the authorities know the children are all in safe environments. 

The Commons Education Committee will be holding a session on home education on Tuesday as part of its examination on the impact of Covid-19 on elective home education. 

A multi-academy trust has decided to shut its schools early for Christmas 

Focus Trust, based in the north west of England and West Yorkshire, has made the decision to shut its 15 primary schools a week early on the 11th December.  

The decision has been made to safeguard staff and protect families after many of the pupils and staff at the trust’s 15 schools have had to self-isolate due to coronavirus. 

In fact, since September, 1,740 of the school's pupils and 375 of their staff had been instructed to stay at home for two weeks at different times. 

Another factor for the decision was to protect the mental and physical health of the staff by ensuring that no-one would have to self-isolate over Christmas due to encountering the virus at school. 

The Department for Education suggested that while it was a challenging time for schools, they felt closing early was not the answer and they have asked the trust to review the arrangement. 

The education of the poorest pupils in England and Wales has suffered the most during Covid isolation 

A survey for charity Teach First has found that four out of five schools with the poorest pupils in England and Wales do not have enough devices and internet access to ensure all self-isolating pupils can continue their education at home. 

Alternative funds such as donations are one of the main way's schools were looking to fund the lack of equipment, however they found this came at a benefit to schools in more affluent areas who were three times more likely to use donations to pay for digital devices. 

The survey also found that 73% of school leaders did not have enough digital devices and internet access to ensure self-isolating students could continue their learning and that many students have been using devices such as smartphones in order to complete their schoolwork, rather than suitable IT device. 

To combat issues like this, the Department for Education has invested over £195 m to support remote education and access to online social care. As part of this investment, more than 340,000 laptops have been purchased to support disadvantaged children.