Konnie Huq: Home school’s hard enough when you DO have devices so let’s help the families who don’t

Brace yourselves!’, ‘Eeeek’, ‘Help!’, ‘Oh no… not again!’ read the messages on school WhatsApp feeds across the country when the news broke.

It was December 19, a Saturday – the first Saturday of the school Christmas holidays to be precise – and as parents tucked their kids into bed that evening, excited for the Christmas break ahead, a last-minute Boris briefing, snuck into the agenda at 8pm, delivered the hammer blow.

That was when we all knew this would be no ordinary Christmas holiday. Not just because we were going into lockdown again, but because children would not be going back to school in January.

Parents everywhere began secretly despairing, myself included.

Home schooling had definitely been the worst part of the first lockdown for me. 

After three months of it, I doubt I was alone in saluting the patient, tolerant, knowledgeable teaching staff I’d taken for granted all this time.

Now, suddenly, builders who could lift steel girders, company execs used to closing big deals and all manner of other hardworking people realised they were no match for schooling their own offspring.

Juggling your own life, domestic chores, a 9 to 5 job, a baby – or whatever else it might have been – with schooling ‘locked down’ children proved enough to tip most of us over the edge.

The coolest and calmest of parents found themselves losing their rag. ‘Snack? No you can’t have a snack, we’re in the middle of fractions!’

We would have clapped teachers on the doorsteps if we could, whilst praying: ‘Take them back! Reopen those schools! Pleeeaasse!’

As for actually understanding the work, I thought I was quite with it, but I definitely don’t remember learning about digraphs and trigraphs and what even is a fronted adverbial?

I have an eight-year-old, Covey, and a six-year-old, Huxley, who attend the local primary school.

Last lockdown, homeschooling for me was more a case of getting them to draw a picture, do some reading, try some times tables and that was bad enough.

This time round, schools are offering better organised, more structured teaching online.

‘Be on Google Classroom at 9am for a live registration, download the timetable, upload your work, if you have any queries type them in the comments section…’

Working from home, teaching from home, doing everything from home, the juggling goes up a notch. ‘I can’t do a Zoom at 2pm to go over the latest sales figures, my son has a live maths lesson, sorry.’

I am literally now sharing my iPad (the one I’m writing on currently) with a six-year-old. Meanwhile my eight-year-old is working on an old laptop with a fraying wire.

But what if you don’t have a computer? These things don’t come cheap. Are disadvantaged families to be discriminated against? Tech shamed?

Of course, schools are trying to provide laptops for those in need, but my children’s suburban west London state primary has four forms for each year group – that’s roughly 120 children per year.

‘Computers for all’ is a noble goal but no mean feat.

And the sad reality is, not every school and every parent can manage that. As a result, thousands of children will go unschooled during lockdown.

Last lockdown I knew parents that had to skip online learning as they didn’t have the resources at home. 

Hopefully the school has helped them this time round – the Government has now handed out over 850,000 devices – but many more are still in need. And that’s a tragedy.

Just as it is every child’s right to have an education in school, it is every child’s right to not miss out on one during what will have been well over a year, maybe even two, of school closures due to the pandemic.

We are living in times where, at the wealthier end of the spectrum, tech is being treated as disposable; and at the other, there are children in the UK that don’t even own a book, let alone a laptop.

It’s time to redress the balance. Hopefully, the Mail’s Computers for Kids will help close the gap and get technology to where it’s needed. 

We all want schools to reopen again. But in the meantime, it’s vital all children have access to education online so they don’t get left behind.

Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World by Konnie Huq is out now (Piccadilly Press, £6.99)