Gavin Williamson hassaid the Department for Education has learned lessons from the problems withexams,remote learning and free school mealsduring the previous coronavirus lockdown.
The education secretary told MPs today that the Department for Education is better prepared for the newnational lockdown.
He said: “I would like to reassure everyone that our schools have not suddenly become unsafe but limiting the number of people who attend them is essential when the number of Covid cases are escalating as they are now.”
In full:The key announcements from Gavin Williamson’s speech
Exams: Teacher grades but noalgorithms for 2021
Ofsted: Watchdog will enforce legal duty on schools to deliver remote learning
Mr Williamson said he was setting out contingency plans that he had prepared but hoped to never haveto implement.
“Unwelcome though this latest lockdown is, andI am very conscious of the real challenges parentsare facing with their children at home, we are far better placed to cope with it than we were last March,” he said.
Coronavirus: Schools ‘are far better placed to cope with lockdown’
“Weare now better prepared to deliver online learning. This isan important step forward in supporting children to make the progress with their education that they so desperately need.”
Mr Williamson set out plans for Ofsted to enforce the government’s statutory expectations for schools to provide remote learning.
He said the watchdog would inspect schools where it had serious concerns about the quality of the provision.
The education secretary thanked teachers, parents and carers for their workand also praisedOak National Academy forproviding videolessons and highlighted the BBC’s plan to broadcast 14 weeks of educational content during the lockdown.
Mr Williamson added: “Our delivery of laptops and tablets continues apace. We have purchasedmore than 1 million laptops and tablets and have already delivered over 560,000 of those to schools and local authorities with an extra 100,000 being distributed this week alone.
“By the end of next week we will have delivered more than three-quarter of a million devices.”
And he told MPs thatanother area where “we have learned lessons” wason exams.
He added: “Last year all four nations of the United Kingdom found their arrangements for awarding grades did not deliver what they needed, with the impact felt painfully by students and their parents.
“Although exams are the fairest way we have of assessing what a student knows, the impact of this pandemic now means that it is not possible to have these exams this year.”
Mr Williamson saidthat teacher-assessed grades will be used for the second year in a row, but withoutan algorithm in 2021.
And he announced extra funding to provide food parcels or meals to eligible pupils on free school meals and said that a national voucher scheme will be in place to ensure that pupils can access meals while schools remain closed.
Mr Williamson was speaking after a dramatic government U-turn.Primary schools were open across much of the country on Monday before Boris Johnson announcedthat night that schools would close to most pupils as the country was to enter another national lockdown.
The prime ministeralso announced that exams would not be going ahead as normal.
