Mail Force yesterday struck a mammoth £1million deal for new computers for lockdown pupils.
The laptops will go to 5,000 of Britain’s most needy schoolchildren and will arrive in several batches over two weeks – starting on Monday.
The landmark moment has come thanks to Daily Mail readers who have donated so generously, along with a parade of philanthropists and big companies.
Donations have poured into the campaign to help schoolchildren unable to follow their online classes.
Huge numbers of families are on the wrong side of the ‘digital divide’ – the gulf between those able to afford enough devices for learning and those not.
Mail Force yesterday struck a mammoth £1million deal for new computers for lockdown pupils. The laptops will go to 5,000 of Britain’s most needy schoolchildren and will arrive in several batches over two weeks – starting on Monday. (Above, pupils from Moston Fields, Manchester)
Mail Force has ordered more than 3,000 Samsung Chromebook 4 devices. These sleek machines are heralded as among the most easy to use on the market, getting children online quickly and easily
Mail Force’s significant intervention would be enough to supply a computer to every primary school pupil eligible for free school meals in the city of Bristol.
Or it would cover the same category of pupil in all secondary schools in Nottingham, or a third of those in Cambridgeshire or County Durham.
The mountain of machines would fill a dozen vans and would be enough to give to all the children in five typical inner city comprehensives.
Last night Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: ‘This campaign continues to go from strength to strength and it’s brilliant to see that, alongside the 1.3million devices the Government is providing, the generosity of Mail readers means more top-of-the-range laptops will be going to children and young people who need them.’
Mail Force has ordered more than 3,000 Samsung Chromebook 4 devices. These sleek machines are heralded as among the most easy to use on the market, getting children online quickly and easily.
Robert Halfon, chairman of the education select committee, said: ‘Lots of schools just need a simple Chromebook to get a child up and running.
‘They are perfect to solve the problem of significant numbers of children who do not have any access to their online lessons.’
A further 1,300 laptops are Acer TravelMate devices, which are specially designed with school pupils in mind and can be flipped from being a tablet to full laptop mode. The charity has also ordered a consignment of Samsung Galaxy Tab A7s.
The brand new machines are on top of 4,250 laptops that are already being donated by some of Britain’s leading companies.
Mail Force’s Computers for Kids campaign, backed by the Daily Mail, only launched at the end of last month, but has already raised £7million in cash and laptop donations.
As well as buying new machines, donated devices from companies can be repurposed for the classroom.
For around £15 they can be expertly refurbished fit for home schooling use.
All of the new laptops the charity is funding are on top of the 1.3million being bought by the Government.
The Mail Force devices are being gifted to the Government and schools can apply for them in the normal way through the Department for Education website.
The campaign’s computers will boost the overall number available, helping more and more pupils keep up with schoolwork.
And even when the pandemic restrictions are lifted, the extraordinary effort to furnish children with laptops will have a lasting effect.
Last night Education Secretary Gavin Williamson said: ‘This campaign continues to go from strength to strength and it’s brilliant to see that, alongside the 1.3million devices the Government is providing, the generosity of Mail readers means more top-of-the-range laptops will be going to children and young people who need them’
It will help youngsters to catch up with their missed learning, and the overall legacy will last for years.
Research suggests this generation of children whose education has been stalled could suffer up to £40,000 in lost earnings over their lifetime as a result.
Mail Force was set up last year to help get PPE to nurses and doctors who desperately needed it. Now the charity is determined to ride to the rescue of schoolchildren.
Big companies such as Camelot, Lloyds, Sainsbury’s, Direct Line, Peak Scientific and Dixons Carphone have pledged to help, along with philanthropists such as Sir Tom Hunter.
Donations also continue to arrive from generous readers. Grandmother Joan Mottershead, who said her own family was struggling with just one device, supported the campaign with a £25 donation.
She wrote: ‘I have four grandchildren in school and they are having to share a computer.’
OAP Ann donated £15 from her pension and said: ‘No child should be deprived of the chance of education. They are the future and will have to pay the bills for this pandemic.’
Kitty Muldoon sent a cheque, with a letter saying: ‘I am a long-time reader of the Daily Mail and admire your campaign for the children of the UK during this awful pandemic. Although a pensioner, not being able to get out to spend, I have this spare cash! Good luck and well done.’
HOW TO DONATE TO COMPUTERS FOR KIDS
TO YOU, THE READER: How to send us donations
The Daily Mail has launched a brand new campaign, Computers For Kids, to raise money for Mail Force – a charity which aims to provide much needed school equipment and resources for pupils across the UK learning from home.
With schools closed, we are left with the dilemma of hundreds of thousands of pupils in the UK having no access to a computer in their home.
As part of this campaign, companies are donating their old laptops which, for around £15, can be wiped, professionally refurbished and made safe and fit for home schooling. They can then be delivered to a child or young person who needs one.
In addition, the campaign is looking to support children’s needs in other ways such as funding brand new laptops and tablets, and assisting with data access and connectivity for online learning. Any surplus funds will be used to support of the work of UK schools via other means.
TO MAKE A DONATION ONLINE
Visit mailforcecharity.co.uk/donate and follow the steps to complete your donation.
Please don’t send us your old device.
TO MAKE A DONATION VIA YOUR PHONE
To donate £10 – text KIDS10 to 70115
To donate £20 – text KIDS20 to 70115
TO COMPANIES: Could you give your old laptops?
Upgrading office computers is something all companies do from time to time – and there has never been a better time to donate old laptops. If you are a company with 50 laptops or more that you could give, please visit www.computacenter.com/daily-mail to check they are suitable and register your donation. We will arrange for collection by our specialist partners Computacenter. Please note: we cannot accept donated laptops from individuals.
COMPANIES SHOULD GO TO: computacenter.com/daily-mail
TO SCHOOLS: Where to apply for the computers
Schools must apply to the Department for Education, which is managing the demand and prioritising the schools most in need. The Mail Force initiative means more laptops will become available more quickly.
SCHOOLS CAN APPLY HERE: https://get-help-with-tech.education.gov.uk
Home school’s hard enough when you DO have devices, says KONNIE HUQ, so let’s help the families who don’t
By KONNIE HUQ for the Daily Mail
Brace yourselves!’, ‘Eeeek’, ‘Help!’, ‘Oh no… not again!’ read the messages on school WhatsApp feeds across the country when the news broke.
It was December 19, a Saturday – the first Saturday of the school Christmas holidays to be precise – and as parents tucked their kids into bed that evening, excited for the Christmas break ahead, a last-minute Boris briefing, snuck into the agenda at 8pm, delivered the hammer blow.
That was when we all knew this would be no ordinary Christmas holiday. Not just because we were going into lockdown again, but because children would not be going back to school in January.
Parents everywhere began secretly despairing, myself included.
Home schooling had definitely been the worst part of the first lockdown for me.
‘Last lockdown I knew parents that had to skip online learning as they didn’t have the resources at home,’ says children’s author and former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq (above, with sons Huxley and Covey and husband Charlie Brooker)
After three months of it, I doubt I was alone in saluting the patient, tolerant, knowledgeable teaching staff I’d taken for granted all this time.
Now, suddenly, builders who could lift steel girders, company execs used to closing big deals and all manner of other hardworking people realised they were no match for schooling their own offspring.
Juggling your own life, domestic chores, a 9 to 5 job, a baby – or whatever else it might have been – with schooling ‘locked down’ children proved enough to tip most of us over the edge.
The coolest and calmest of parents found themselves losing their rag. ‘Snack? No you can’t have a snack, we’re in the middle of fractions!’
We would have clapped teachers on the doorsteps if we could, whilst praying: ‘Take them back! Reopen those schools! Pleeeaasse!’
As for actually understanding the work, I thought I was quite with it, but I definitely don’t remember learning about digraphs and trigraphs and what even is a fronted adverbial?
I have an eight-year-old, Covey, and a six-year-old, Huxley, who attend the local primary school.
Konnie home schooling her sons. ‘We all want schools to reopen again. But in the meantime, it’s vital all children have access to education online so they don’t get left behind,’ she says
Last lockdown, homeschooling for me was more a case of getting them to draw a picture, do some reading, try some times tables and that was bad enough.
This time round, schools are offering better organised, more structured teaching online.
‘Be on Google Classroom at 9am for a live registration, download the timetable, upload your work, if you have any queries type them in the comments section…’
Working from home, teaching from home, doing everything from home, the juggling goes up a notch. ‘I can’t do a Zoom at 2pm to go over the latest sales figures, my son has a live maths lesson, sorry.’
I am literally now sharing my iPad (the one I’m writing on currently) with a six-year-old. Meanwhile my eight-year-old is working on an old laptop with a fraying wire.
But what if you don’t have a computer? These things don’t come cheap. Are disadvantaged families to be discriminated against? Tech shamed?
Of course, schools are trying to provide laptops for those in need, but my children’s suburban west London state primary has four forms for each year group – that’s roughly 120 children per year.
‘Computers for all’ is a noble goal but no mean feat.
And the sad reality is, not every school and every parent can manage that. As a result, thousands of children will go unschooled during lockdown.
Last lockdown I knew parents that had to skip online learning as they didn’t have the resources at home.
Hopefully the school has helped them this time round – the Government has now handed out over 850,000 devices – but many more are still in need. And that’s a tragedy.
Just as it is every child’s right to have an education in school, it is every child’s right to not miss out on one during what will have been well over a year, maybe even two, of school closures due to the pandemic.
We are living in times where, at the wealthier end of the spectrum, tech is being treated as disposable; and at the other, there are children in the UK that don’t even own a book, let alone a laptop.
It’s time to redress the balance. Hopefully, the Mail’s Computers for Kids will help close the gap and get technology to where it’s needed.
We all want schools to reopen again. But in the meantime, it’s vital all children have access to education online so they don’t get left behind.
Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World by Konnie Huq is out now (Piccadilly Press, £6.99).