Heading to a school near you… 5,000 FREE laptops thanks to your generosity in backing Mail Force drive
- 5,000 brand new Chromebooks and other models already on way to classrooms
- Several thousand refurbished laptops donated by companies will follow shortly
- Astonishing £10.8million now been raised to help pupils get on the internet
They are piled high and ready to go! This was the magnificent scene yesterday as thousands of Mail Force laptops were made ready for shipping to schools.
The 5,000 brand new Chromebooks and other models are by now already on their way to classrooms across the country. Several thousand refurbished laptops donated by large companies will follow on shortly.
The lucky recipients will join the likes of Oscar Rowley, nine, one of several pupils at Beamont Primary School in Warrington, Cheshire, who have already taken delivery of their laptops.
These lifelines for disadvantaged schoolchildren were bought with donations from generous Daily Mail readers, philanthropists and corporations.
They are piled high and ready to go! This was the magnificent scene yesterday as thousands of Mail Force laptops were made ready for shipping to schools
The lucky recipients will join the likes of Oscar Rowley, nine, (centre) one of several pupils at Beamont Primary School in Warrington, Cheshire, who have already taken delivery of their laptops
An astonishing £10.8million has now been raised to help pupils get on the internet.
Hundreds of thousands of children on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’ have struggled through lockdown without a laptop or tablet to follow online lessons and now, with schools reopening, they still face an enormous struggle to catch up.
Mail Force has been working hard to source devices – and yesterday’s shipment was the biggest yet.
More than 5,000 have been sent by courier to schools in more than 100 towns and villages in all corners of England, from Warminster to Wolverhampton and from Northampton to Newcastle upon Tyne. Separate shipments are being prepared for elsewhere in the UK.
More than 5,000 have been sent by courier to schools in more than 100 towns and villages in all corners of England
All the Mail Force devices were requested by schools via the Department for Education’s online portal.
They were then gathered in the high security warehouse of the Mail’s IT partner in Hatfield, Hertfordshire, where they went though final checks before being shipped.
It is a huge operation, and all the boxes containing laptops in this picture are already on their way to children. Many will have arrived by the time this newspaper is published.
There has also been great demand for the other Mail Force initiative – free Vodafone data SIM cards for pupils.
The charity has bought 150,000 SIM cards, each with 30Gb of data to keep a schoolchild online for approximately nine weeks’ worth of lessons.
The Vodafone SIM cards can be inserted in a mobile phone which then acts as a wi-fi hotspot for nearby devices such as laptops and tablets.
Children face a huge challenge to catch up on a year of disrupted learning, according to schools minister Baroness Berridge, who told the House of Lords that ensuring they had devices at home was a ‘long term’ strategy.
All six living Prime Ministers have praised the Mail Force initiative to get devices and data cards to children who need them.