Extracts from Lords debate on Covid-19: Children - June 17
Friday, 18 June 2021 08:20
Baroness Blower (Lab):...The coronavirus pandemic has increased
pressures on low-income families. Virtually all respondents in the
NEU members survey reported students with limited or no access to
learning resources at home during the months of the pandemic. This
is not just laptops—four in five members reported families turning
to schools or college for extra support during lockdown for
provision of basic resources such as pens, paper and books, hence
the £1 million fund set up by the NEU...Request free trial
(Lab):...The coronavirus pandemic has increased
pressures on low-income families. Virtually all respondents in
the NEU members survey reported
students with limited or no access to learning resources at home
during the months of the pandemic. This is not just laptops—four in
five members reported families turning to schools or college for
extra support during lockdown for provision of basic resources such
as pens, paper and books, hence the £1 million fund set up by
the NEU to help at least some
children and young people to access those resources. One-fifth of
schools in the UK have set up food banks since March 2020 and, of
course, as was the case previously, 25% of teachers report that
they personally provide food, snacks and so on to their pupils at
their own expense. Poverty harms children’s physical health and
mental well-being, which undermines their ability to learn, as we
have heard from so many speakers.
(Con):...I make that point because,
if we are now going to try to make up the lost time, it is about
not just budgets but ambition. That means that, if we are serious
about putting children first, we have to be prepared to give them
priority over some competing interests. It might mean a longer
school day or shorter school holidays. I am very struck by the way
in which the National Education Union, having
campaigned furiously against schools coming back at all and having
demanded that everything be done online, started campaigning
against online tuition the moment that it was conceded, so that a
lesson effectively became just a video and then a PDF worksheet.
Imagine if, pre-lockdown, you had gone into a classroom and that
had been the style of teaching —would any of us have regarded that
as adequate?
(Lab):...We need to look at urgent
support to allow our children to process the events of the past
year and to bounce back from them, such as quality, accessible
mental health provision and longer-term goals, giving them optimism
for what they can achieve in the future. That is why Labour is
supporting the National Education Union’s No Child
Left Behind campaign on child poverty, to which several noble Lords
referred. This needs to be a cross-government effort, recognising
the challenge that our children are facing, the opportunities they
deserve and the huge potential they have...
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