Following a constituency wide consultation Jess has written to Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, after it became apparent that many schools who had been promised IT to support pupils with distanced learning had seen their allocation drastically reduced.
Jess wrote: “Under the provisions of your department’s temporary continuity direction which came into force on 22nd October, schools are ‘required to provide remote education to pupils’. Many pupils do not have access to a laptop or tablet at home, and if they do this device may well be shared between multiple children in one household. These children will be relying on their school to provide devices to facilitate their education.”
“What is the Government going to do to make sure children in Yardley and across the country do not miss another hour of education for want of vital teaching resources they had been specifically allocated and have now had retracted? Will the Department for education supply the technology that was initially offered to schools to support remote education of pupils?”