Midlothian hands out thousands of devices to pupils as new term of home learning gets under way

As the new term got under way with most pupils having to stay at home under the latest Covid lockdown, Midlothian Council saidthat since the start of the pandemic it had supplied around 3,800 Chromebooks and 54 4G dongles to connect to the internet.

It said the drive to provide all school-age children with a device, if required, and to make sure they can access the internet would support online lessons, including live teaching sessions where appropriate.

A BBC survey of remote learning provision across Scotland, published at the weekend, wrongly highlighted Midlothian as one of the councils not offering live lessons.

The council said Newbattle Community High School had already confirmed its live lessons timetable and teachers in other schools across the county would also offer live lessons where appropriate.

Midlothian Council’s cabinet member for education, Councillor Jim Muirhead, said: “We have made every effort to ensure all of our pupils – more than 9,000 young people – can continue to learn safely at home.

“There’s been an awful lot of work gone into around 3,800 devices to the pupils who didn’t have a computer, tablet or Chromebook at home.

“The council has paid for around 2,500 of those devices and the Scottish Government has funded around 1,300.

“As well as offering a mix of live and other online learning, teachers will also be working with pupils to make sure they can access and complete their tasks.

“We realise this is a very challenging time for our young people and we want to stress that supports are available and our committed education staff are doing all they can to provide the best quality possible online learning experience.

“The education service and schools will continue to respond to parent and learner feedback to improve support throughout this period of remote learning.”

Newbattle Community High School headteacher Gib McMillan said digital learning had been an integral part of the curriculum since the opening of the new school, which is designated a digital centre of excellence.

He said: “We believe that learning should provide flexibility for families and learners. Listening to feedback from our previous experience of remote learning and using research, a timetable with a variety of live opportunities provides a more valuable learning experience than simply live lectures. Live learning may include tutorials, question/answer sessions, rounding off a topic discussion, starting a new topic discussion, flipped learning, feedback on evidence required for SQA etc. Recorded lessons also provide flexibility for pupils and families to learn at the time which best suits their individual situation.”

Live lessons are an option for schools in Edinburgh after the council changed its policy and lifted a ban on pupils and teachers using the camera function on the Microsoft Teams system, but education chiefs have warned parents that video-conference-style classes will not be the norm.

Schools are open only for vulnerable pupils and children of key workers until February at least.

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