Question reference: S5W-32879
- Asked by: Alison Johnstone, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Green Party
- Date lodged: 28 October 2020
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Current status: Answered by John Swinney on 9 November 2020
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what it is doing to expand home learning provision for pupils who cannot attend school due to COVID-19.
Answer
Responsibility for arranging learning for children who have to self-isolate or quarantine rests with the child’s school and the relevant local authority.
To enhance the options available to schools, Scottish Government and Education Scotland are working with the Association of Directors of Education to deliver the e-learning national partnership initiative, which seeks to widen access to live lessons, recorded lessons and digital learning and teaching resources. Further detail is available at: https://education.gov.scot/education-scotland/news-and-events/new-partnership-offer-to-improve-availability-of-online-learning-across-scotland/ .
Education Scotland's new Scotland Learns mini site provides additional learning at home activities and ideas to complement any online learning and offline learning provided by the school. Further information is available at: https://education.gov.scot/improvement/scotland-learns/ .
In order to improve access to devices to support home learning, funding allocations for devices and connectivity have been made to all 32 local authorities, helping to provide 70,000 devices and 18,000 connectivity solutions to disadvantaged children and young people across Scotland.
Further advice and support to parents is provided via the Parent Club website, which now has a number of dedicated pages on how to support children’s learning during Covid-19.