Campaign to help get laptops to lockdown pupils starts with a bang

Our campaign to help get laptops to lockdown pupils has raised a staggering £250,000 in its first weekend.

In a flying start beyond our wildest dreams, Daily Mail readers have again shown phenomenal generosity.

From £5 to £5,000, thousands of contributions have flooded in – many from grandparents – coupled with heartfelt messages of support.

One pensioner gave £250, signing off simply as a ‘retiree’ who was ‘happy to help the young’. 

And today Bill Gates, who practically invented home computing, has been inspired to add his heavyweight support to the drive to help the neediest schoolchildren. The Microsoft co-founder said its success was ‘vital’.

David Walliams said he was ‘pleased and proud’ to back the campaign, and urged big names to follow suit. The comedian and children’s author handed over a five-figure sum.

Every penny of the money will help the Mail Force charity to accelerate the Government’s efforts to get laptops to schools.

An exclusive poll for the Mail today reveals one in three families do not have enough computers for their children to study at home.

With classrooms likely to stay shut until after Easter, a ‘digital divide’ is opening up between pupils who are able to follow online lessons at home and those who do not have ready access to the internet.

Mail Force, the charity set up by the Mail last year to buy personal protective equipment for the NHS, is now obtaining devices for children who desperately need them for study. 

The Computers for Kids campaign launched only on Saturday yet within 48 hours, our generous readers have donated £210,000 online.

Because Mail Force is a registered charity, and qualifies for Gift Aid, which can add 20 per cent to a donation, the overall sum raised is £250,000. Many readers will have posted cheques that are yet to arrive while our online giving page was swamped with warm messages of support.

An anonymous donor decided money spoke louder than words, putting down an extraordinary £5,000. 

Another, named just Bowers, gave £1,000. The cash will be spent on refurbishing used laptops given by companies that are upgrading their systems. 

Scores of donor firms have already been in touch with Mail Force’s IT specialist partner. For as little as £15, a laptop can be securely wiped of all data, rebuilt and made classroom-ready.

Mail Force will also buy new laptops and tablets to hand over to the Department for Education. Nothing Mail Force does will interfere with the Government’s programme – it will just help to speed things up.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, writing in today’s Mail, says: ‘I’m delighted the Daily Mail and its generous readers will be helping our remote education programme.

‘I want to assure you we have been working incredibly hard to deliver the necessary tech across the country so that every child, especially those from disadvantaged homes, can keep their learning on track. 

Backed by the support of the Mail and its readers, I have no doubt remote education will continue to go from strength to strength.’ 

The Mail Force crusade has also won the backing of the main teaching unions. The scheme means the DfE has become one of the world’s biggest buyers of computers, ordering 1.3million so far – of which 800,000 have been delivered.

Among the contributions flooding in from Mail readers over the weekend was £150 from grandparents named Phil and Sue who left a message saying: ‘We have ten grandchildren, so we are funding one computer on behalf of each one.’

Donating £300, plus £75 Gift Aid, Mail reader Jill sent an encouraging message to the children: ‘Fantastic cause. Well done Mail. Good luck kids with all your studying – this will all get better soon.’

A former teacher, who gave £50 anonymously, said: ‘It is heart-breaking to witness the disparity in access to learning for our children.’

It’s Mission Impossible to get my kids online   

By Lizzie Deane for the Daily Mail

Harriet Way says it has been ‘Mission: Impossible’ trying to get her children’s work done without enough devices.

Her three school-age children – Mia, nine, Alfie, six, and four-year-old Isla – are sharing two donated laptops.

She says it is an improvement on the first two weeks of term, when the children were using tablets but their education is still suffering.

The 31-year-old, from Eastleigh in Hampshire, who has two younger children, two-year-old Theo and 17-month-old Lexi, said she has been forced to choose which of the elder three can study.

‘Most days one of the kids will still miss out on some of their lessons because they can’t all use the laptops at the same time,’ she said. 

‘It’s like Mission: Impossible trying to get all of their lessons done. The video lessons have been a godsend, but if all three have one at the same time I’m forced to choose who gets to tune into their lesson.

‘I prioritise Mia because she’s the oldest – but I shouldn’t have to because then the others suffer. I do worry for their education, because these are years they’ll never get back.

‘The jump from infant to junior school especially is a massive leap.’

We juggle one laptop among our three children 

As a mother of three boys with a range of disabilities, lockdown learning was never going to be easy for Lynsey Fulcher.

But having only one small-screen laptop to share between her sons has made things even more of a struggle for her and fiance Andrew Basham.

Their three boys – George, nine, Matthew, seven, and six-year-old William – have a mixture of conditions and special needs. 

Miss Fulcher, 42 and from Shildon in County Durham, said: ‘Disabled children have been forgotten about during the pandemic.

‘They’ve not been able to get carers in, they’re not getting therapies, parents are getting no respite time.’

Miss Fulcher said she had used Fair For You, a not-for-profit lending firm, to buy sensory lights, toys and books to stimulate the boys through lockdown.

My daughter’s GCSEs are at risk

Freya Smith is in her final year at secondary and does not have a laptop for vital assessments.

The 15-year-old has been accessing live online lessons via an Xbox and iPad, but struggles to do the coursework that partly decides her GCSE grades.

Her mother Lisa said having a laptop would help her after enduring, like all pupils, such disruption.

The 51-year-old school worker said: ‘They’ve had a really tough time this year group – they only did half a year last year and now this year has been disrupted and they’re the two most important years really, the GCSE studies.

‘The lack of technology just adds to the pressure they’re feeling. She needs a laptop to complete the classwork and homework and also the coursework for her GCSEs. 

Quite often they need a Word application, so a laptop would be so beneficial.

‘All the students and Freya particularly have been so resilient, they’ve adapted to online learning and they’re just getting on with it. They’re spending a lot of time on their online lessons and then having to take extra time because they don’t have the right technology.

‘If they had that laptop it would just make the best use of their time and help them to work efficiently.’

Freya is on the waiting list for a laptop at her school, Arena Academy in Birmingham.

‘They’re working so hard and they just so deserve to have the right equipment,’ her mother said.

Home schooling despair: One in three locked-down families don’t have enough computers for their children to study 

By Simon Walters for the Daily Mail

One third of families are struggling with home schooling because they simply do not have enough computers for their children, an exclusive poll for the Daily Mail today reveals.

Four in ten parents say the cost of computers and other items they need is too high, according to the survey.

More than a quarter cite the high cost of internet access as a problem.

And families worst hit by the Covid schools shutdown are the poorest and those in the North.

The Daily Mail poll illustrates the devastating effect of school closures on children – and their mums and dads.

The survey by JL Partners shows that nearly one in five children (18 per cent) learning from home gets no ‘live’ schooling via a computer screen from their teacher per day whatsoever.

Significant numbers of parents say their children’s hopes of getting a good education, a university place or a career have been severely damaged by nearly a year of Covid disrupted education.

Even their social skills have been damaged by being denied face to face contact with their friends.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who came to power on a pledge to ‘level up’ Britain, will be concerned that the impact on poorer children is greater in all these categories.

Nor is it only the young who are suffering: a staggering one in two parents says their own mental health has deteriorated.

Mothers have borne the brunt: 55 per cent say their mental health has got worse – nine per cent higher than fathers (46 per cent).

Parents’ concern is shared by the wider public: 49 per cent of all adults say coronavirus has caused long-term damage to children’s life chances; 20 per cent disagree.

According to the poll, 82 per cent of children in England, Scotland and Wales are learning from home.

A total of 32 per cent of parents say they do not have enough computers for their studies. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) has more than one child – but only one laptop.

Six per cent who do not have a computer are forced to use a mobile phone instead.

But – while there are clearly difficulties – two thirds of parents say they do have enough laptops to cope. 

An overwhelming 72 per cent believe it is the Government’s responsibility to provide computers to make home learning easier; only seven per cent disagree.

Two thirds of parents say the cost of ‘remote learning materials’ such as computers, software and exercise books, is too high. 

While parents are largely supportive of teachers, 41 per cent want more help from schools for children forced to learn in their front room or kitchen; 29 per cent say they have enough support.

Twenty-seven per cent believe internet access costs too much, with 23 per cent saying they grin and bear it and pay up to stop their children falling behind. Sixteen per cent of parents pay between £10 and £30 per week for internet access.

Most parents are doing their best to take the place of teachers: 44 per cent spend between one and three hours per day helping their children learn at home. An impressive additional 27 per cent devote more than three hours a day.

While 43 per cent of parents say they have taken over teaching duties because the school had ‘fallen short’ in its obligations; 30 per cent did not blame the school.

Remarkably, the survey suggests parents now do more ‘live lesson’ teaching than teachers. 

Children unable to go to school are getting an average of two hours and six minutes of ‘live’ remote lessons from their school teacher a day – two minutes less than the average time parents spend teaching their offspring.

Seventeen per cent of parents in the South are paying for private tuition to help children learn at home – more than three times more than in the less prosperous North where 5 per cent do this.

Nowhere is the class divide on the effect of the stress and strain on parents during the Covid crisis illustrated more vividly than the mental health impact. 

Among affluent families, 39 per cent say their mental health has suffered; 20 per cent say it has improved.

However, among the poorest families, these figures are 61 per cent and five per cent respectively. The public agree that today’s young generation will feel the effects of the pandemic for decades.

Almost one in two (49 per cent) say it will inflict long-term damage to their children’s life chances; 20 per cent say it will not have this effect. James Johnson of JL Partners said: ‘This poll lays bare the stark inequality of the Covid pandemic, and months of remote learning.

‘Middle-class parents say there has been no real impact on their children’s life chances, but children of working-class parents and the unemployed are short of laptops, their parents have seen their physical and mental health worsen, and they are the least likely to have remote lessons provided for by their school.

‘While some enjoy the comforts of being at home, this data shows that less affluent children are truly being left behind.’

A total of 4,052 adults took part in the poll from January 18 to 21. It includes 988 parents of children under 18. Of these, 734 have youngsters learning from home.

 

HEARTFELT support for the Mail Force campaign has arrived from one of the pioneers of home computing – Bill Gates.

The co-founder of Microsoft gave his staunch backing to the Mail’s drive to get laptops to schoolchildren.

The US philanthropist, 65, said: ‘There is no limit to what young people can achieve if they have the right resources and are able to access quality digital learning online.

‘It’s vital, with so many kids stuck at home, that we equip more students with the tools they need to succeed and prevent inequalities from deepening.’

In the 1980s, Mr Gates’ vision of a computer in every home helped make Microsoft the world’s largest supplier.

Further backing to the cause came from David Walliams, the award-winning comedian and best-selling children’s author.

He has donated a generous five-figure sum to the campaign and hailed its crusade to help poorer children cross the ‘digital divide’ between those can access online lessons and those who cannot.

He said: ‘I am pleased and proud to support the Mail’s campaign to put computers into the hands of children who need them most. I was shocked to learn of the extent of the digital divide that exists in this country.

‘A computer and WiFi is something many of us take for granted. We need a fairer society and education for all is a pillar of that.’

Walliams is a hit with children due to his books such as Demon Dentist and The Beast of Buckingham Palace. He is also a judge on ITV’s Britain’s Got Talent.

The star added: ‘I know these are tough times, but if you are fortunate enough to be able to help, please join me in this fantastic initiative from the newspaper.’

 When the campaign was launched on Saturday, England rugby star Maro Itoje said: ‘We must strive for every child to have an equal education because it is the one gift that stays with them for life and opens up their world.’

And former education secretary Lord Blunkett said: ‘Quite simply, our children need laptops if they are to learn. 

That is why I am backing the Mail’s campaign to get the equipment, connectivity and conditions right for youngsters to have everything they need to be able to learn at home and begin catching up in the months and years ahead.’

We MUST help these children fulfil their hopes and dreams: SARAH VINE makes a passionate plea to give lockdown pupils the tools they need to thrive in lessons

As the mother of two children at inner-city London secondaries, I know how difficult life is for some pupils. Over the years, children of all shapes and sizes and from all types of backgrounds have sat at my kitchen table.

Some have every advantage in life, others have very little. Some have parents who smother them, others have ones who are completely absent.

More than one is growing up without a father. One of the mothers once rang me up and threatened me with violence. It has been an education in more ways than one.

I have always been committed to equality in education and believed that money, status or class should not be a driver of a young person’s chances in life.

Yet I have no illusions about the scale of the obstacles some children face. Well-off families can mitigate with money, but for poorer children, school is the one chance they have to change the narrative. It doesn’t always succeed, of course. There are always those who sadly slip through the net. But something is better than nothing.

And yet now, nothing is what they have. By closing schools, we have taken away that social safety net, and many are now in freefall. Last November, Ofsted raised the alarm about what is happening to young people outside classrooms, stating growing evidence that vulnerable children are being targeted by drug gangs.

As Amanda Spielman, head of Ofsted, so wisely says: ‘Getting children engaged and into the classroom is so important — for their safety and to help them make the right life choices.’

Many of the teenagers due to sit GCSEs last year and this year are being lost to the education system, unable to see a future for themselves and seduced by what, thanks to a prevailing youth culture that glorifies guns, drugs and violence, seems like a more lucrative path. It’s a tragedy in the making.

Perhaps none of this would be so bad if the alternative provision during lockdown was adequate — if every child had a laptop on which to study, and lessons to log on to throughout the day.

Yes, children of key workers have been allowed into schools — but they haven’t been having anything approaching normal lessons.

The best most schools have managed to muster is a kind of glorified creche, where children of all ages and all abilities are supervised in a socially distanced environment while they attempt ‘independent learning’.

Others — inevitably, the already best-performing schools — have been more successful in providing remote learning.

Both my children’s schools, for example, have done their utmost and succeeded impressively in giving pupils some semblance of a ‘normal’ school day, with live lessons and supervised tests using Zoom and the like. For kids like mine, who have access to decent wifi and their own laptops (albeit, like their phones, hand-me-downs) this has helped maintain some semblance of normality.

But there are plenty who simply don’t have access to the hardware.

For them the days lack structure and, without the encouragement and help of teachers, ambition and focus ebb away.

I know one child who has barely left his house since last March. Both my children have friends who have fallen off the grid, and they have several who can’t access remote learning at all.

Others manage it sporadically but not in any meaningful way. Once again, these are never the kids who already have a head start in life. It’s always the ones with the biggest hurdles to overcome.

Digital poverty in the age of Covid doesn’t just mean not being able to Snapchat your mates or post selfies on Instagram.

It is creating an educational divide not seen since Victorian times. One that, unless we take action now, threatens to blight an entire generation.

This is not to point fingers at teachers or ministers or anyone else wrestling with the monstrous problems this pandemic has visited on a shellshocked world.

It is simply to highlight one of the most damaging legacies of a health crisis that we are still struggling to contain.

There are almost ten million children aged three-16 in the UK. If you add in those in further education, those aged between 17 and 24, it’s almost 15 million.

Every single one of these individuals has been affected in one way or another by school and college closures. Some catastrophically so. We already know that a quarter of pupils — around 2.5 million children in the UK — had no schooling at all during lockdown last year.

Now, the repercussions of that are beginning to filter through. Children lost up to 14 weeks of school time during spring and summer.

There is strong evidence that, on average, pupils are three months behind on their schooling, with maths being the subject worst affected.

But the Department for Education estimates that in some areas, especially in the North East, that could be as high as 22 months.

That’s not just a gap — it’s an abyss. A black hole that threatens to swallow up whole lives, whole futures, not to mention the prospects of the country as a whole.

In the long term, it risks leaving students without the necessary foundations either to continue their studies or progress into the workforce. It means a workforce that simply won’t have the skills required not just to earn a living but to help rebuild our shattered economy.

In the short term, it means poor mental health, social problems and loneliness.

To my mind, the only way out of this is to reopen schools within weeks. Vaccinate teachers as a priority, and get children back into safe learning environments as soon as humanly possible.

B ut I know that won’t happen. I’ve made the argument time and time again, but always the immediate threat of Covid and the grim death toll trumps everything.

Until that changes, making sure that every child has access to a computer and decent wifi so they can do their best to keep up in lockdown is the most important thing we, as parents and as a country, can do.

That is why this Daily Mail campaign is so vitally important. That is why the astonishing amount of money — around £250,000 — already so generously donated by you, the readers, in the two days since the campaign launched, is so crucial.

By giving money to the Computers For Kids campaign, you are not only improving the short-term prospects of students, helping restore their hopes and dreams.

You are also helping to safeguard the long-term future of the country, the economy and Britain as a whole.

Thank you.

 

 

How you can help?

What is Mail Force doing? 

With schools shut and children learning online, those without laptops are falling behind. 

As with last year’s successful drive to provide PPE to the NHS, Mail Force is sourcing laptops fast and passing them on to schools through the Government’s existing distribution scheme. We are working closely with the Department for Education.

Isn’t the Government doing this?

Ministers ordered 1.3million laptops, with 800,000 already delivered. But a third of families say they don’t have enough and schools could be shut until after Easter. We want to help speed things up for children missing lessons.

How does it work?

With money donated to the charity, it costs as little as £15 to refurbish a second-hand laptop – which generous companies are already starting to donate. Mail Force will also purchase brand new laptops and tablets. This is on top of Government supply.

Can I give my own laptop?

Sadly not, for technical reasons.

Laptops have sensitive data – is it safe?

Yes, completely. The process is handled by experts at a firm of global IT specialists. Their clients include multinational banks, blue chip companies and governments who trust them to securely wipe old laptops to a ‘gold standard’.

Mail Force is not directly involved in the process.

How will they go to the right children? 

The Department for Education prioritises those who need the laptops most, calculated by using a school’s number of children on free meals or pupil premium (funding for disadvantaged youngsters). 

The laptops are then sent to schools for head teachers to allocate to families.