UK coronavirus live: pupils head back to school as MPs return to work

Education secretary Gavin Williamson to face MPs following exams fiasco while pupils return to classrooms after summer holidaysGap between rich and poor pupils in England ‘grows by 46% in a year’Matt Hancock favoured Tory areas with lockdown changesLittle room for manoeuvre as UK Covid cases increaseGlobal coronavirus live: latest updates 8.51am BST Asked about a teachers’ survey suggesting that the average pupil is three months behind where they should be with their learning, Gibb said it showed the importance of children being back in school. He told Today:The important thing now is that young people are back in school, back being taught by their teachers.Over the lockdown period, schools worked hugely, very hard to make sure there was work for students to do, online lessons and so on. But ... it is always harder, even for the most hard-working student at home, to learn as effectively in that environment as opposed to being at school with your teacher.Schools didn’t just rely on online lessons, they also had other work sent home and so on. But we did procure one of the biggest procurement of computers in this country – over 200,000 computers were bought on a global market and given over to schools.And we’ve also acquired a further reserve of over 100,000 computers for areas of the country with local restrictions in place, should that happen. 8.36am BST Here’s a little more on Gibb’s assertion that the time needed for exam marking and the university admissions process is being considered as part of any decision on pushing next year’s summer exam season back. He told Today:The issues are not simple. We have to take into account the other nations in the UK which also use the GCSEs and A-levels in their term dates; you have to take into account the time for marking, making sure results are delivered on a certain date for university admissions and so on.There are a whole range of factors that the exam boards, Ofqual and the Department (for Education) are looking at, but we will form a decision very soon.It will be very soon because we know schools need to know the answer to this question and we have been working on it since mid-June. Continue reading... https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/sep/01/uk-coronavirus-live-news-covid-19-latest-updates-pupils-head-back-to-school-as-mps-return-to-work #coronavirus_outbreak #politics #uk_news