The return of lockdown offered a grim start to the new year. That the decision to shut schools and transition to remote learning came so late didn’t set things off to a good start with a teacher workforce already worried to exhaustion, compounding the likelihood of teacher attrition to come. In a move widely regarded by Early Years practitioners as baffling, the government also announced that childcare settings would, however, remain open, despite rates of infection among staff being similar. In an effort to get ahead of this, the PM pledged to double down on the government’s public-sector recruitment drive.
On the upside, the majority of schools, and a considerably greater number of parents, were better prepared for remote schooling after last year – not to say that managing children’s learning has been easy. Ofsted issued well-grounded and useful guidance for schools on what effective remote learning means in practice – worth a look if you’re in edtech and want to think about the challenges of adoption from the perspective of the school. Although the regulator has so far resisted pressure from the DfE to develop inspection criteria for rating the quality of remote learning, this will undoubtedly come round again.
In the meantime, take a look at the Education and Training Foundation’s Digital Teaching Professional Framework, which achieved another development milestone this month with the release of a tranche of new PD modules designed to support digital content creation and delivery. In an uncharacteristically enthused speech on the opening of #BettFest online, Nick Gibb extolled the Department’s partnership with Microsoft and Google to enable collaboration between 6,500+ ‘Demonstrator’ schools in the areas of resource-sharing, pupil progress monitoring, feedback and platform-based teaching delivery.
Returning to whether to close schools and embrace remote delivery, part of the PM’s reticence will of course have been due to mounting evidence of learning gaps, the mental health repercussions that have followed young people’s separation from their peers and communities, and rising inequity. Well documented in education research last year, the debate has overtaken Westminster in earnest this month, driving increasing numbers and accelerating the distribution of laptops to schools and underscoring that the degree of learning loss is so severe in places (and especially so in the north east) as to justify consideration of a fully funded repeat year.
On the mental health front, two important reports from CoSpace and The Prince’s Trust respectively, highlighted covid’s impact on family stress and the mental health of 16-25 year-olds.
There’s been much debate on what lasting impacts the pandemic might have on inherited models of education provision in almost every area. In relation to a couple of the issues in the public eye this month I want to conclude with a look at where entrepreneurial energies are going.
First, mental health. Prior to the pandemic, the task of providing more relevant, personalised, and engaging mental-health support for young people seemed a mountain to climb. Video content curators like Boclips worked the flipped learning concept with a view to use in blended learning. Perhaps because for many the idea of an app-based solution seems counter-intuitive for addressing the issues, direct to consumer offerings have been slower to emerge – social enterprise app MeeTwo got a head-start with help from the NHS. This month, start-up EmpowerU received seed funding to launch its highly personalized, tech-powered, social-emotional learning solution nationwide. A fledgling start-up, Quol, aspires to going even further, with accessible user-led, social influencer-presented quality video content and a focus on habit-forming positive behavioural change.
Second, catch-up and remedial. Paul Johnson of the IFS soberingly explained in an article for The Times (reproduced here) that when schools do return, teachers are going to face enormous challenges, likely for years to come, managing these disparities. In policy terms, it might very well serve us at this juncture to place learning progress on a ‘stage, not age’ footing. I commented briefly in the last issue on the promise of the National Tutoring Programme to assist schools with edtech and targeted tutoring: Ian Koxvold’s ‘what’s in store for 2021’ piece has thoughts to offer on this, among other developments, too and is well worth a read.
Third, childcare. Three initiatives that pre-date covid founded in the conviction that traditional models need a rethink, are now experiencing a boon. The first (from 2014) is Capture Education’s app for managing parent communications, which journals learning in accordance with EYFS requirements and manages the payments side too. In 2020 Capture added significant value for its nursery customer base by producing some great parent-facing content to support early learning at home. Second, Tiney are taking a fresh look at the potential of small group home-based education. Tiney has developed an excellent training, start-up and ongoing support package to attract a new breed of early years educators, and it’s definitely working! And third, there is Koru Kids, a new part-time Nanny agency who’ve figured out affordable local solutions for families/parents increasingly working from home, and are drawing significant scale-up investment.
Sign up for the Entrepreneurship Education Monthly newsletter here.