One of the major conclusions that we have from the last eight months of schooling is that there is a digital divide between the haves and the have nots, but specifically applied to technology – Laptop, Chromebook or Tablets. The FT reports that as the current health situation deepens many schools are moving to the…
As parents our roles have changed from taxi driver to and from school for most of us, to chief of internet police, cheerleader and tech support. Teachers’ roles now have also added psychologist to their long list of responsibilities. But Head Teachers are now being given a further, unnecessary role: Head Track & Tracer. While…
While many countries in the world have, in spite of increasing numbers of infections with Covid-19, allowed schools to remain open, yet the US is keeping many closed. Articles in previous weeks have pointed to the fact that children are better off in school than at home, and chances of catching anything while at school…
Keeping children safe has to be one of the highest goals for families, society and governments. According to UNESCO “a billion children around the world experience violence in one form or another”. As well as physical risks there are digital risks. Schools have a key role to play in preventing and detecting issues in this…
One thing coming out of the pandemic is that we are suffering greater austerity as governments struggle to balance the high costs of health services with the cost of maintaining quarantine and policing new laws. A recent OECD article confirmed that while public attention focuses on short-term challenges – health and maintaining employment – “the…
Data privacy is a key tenet that we seem to have advanced with in some areas and not in others, though enshrined in GDPR law since 2018. When the subjects are children the issue becomes – rightly so – centre stage. Instagram, owned by Facebook, is being investigated by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner over its…
Children have become more reliant on technology since the start of the pandemic. As parents, we have supported this since lockdown. However, allowing more time on devices is very hard to reverse, as this article points out. Belinda Parmar, CEO of The Empathy Business, warns, “I think we are going to look back on this…
While many teachers have been challenged by the need to deliver both classroom and online lessons, sometimes simultaneously, there has been very little analysis of this. YouGov and Microsoft carried out a study on more than 1,000 UK teachers. This highlighted a “lack of clear strategy from school leaders, IT departments and classroom staff to…
Parents and policy makers will be relieved to know that schools have had a very limited role in spreading coronavirus. An article in the FT, quoting studies from Germany and Norway, suggest that if schools were to close there would be a limited effect on curbing the virus. This will assuage those who want to…
A recent study (US) by NortonLifeLock, ‘Screens & Quarantine: Digital Parenting in a Pandemic,’ revealed the impact of the pandemic on children’s usage of devices at home. Unsurprisingly the results showed that 69% of parents said that their child’s screen time had increased, 60% saying they had no choice but to allow it, but 57%…