Our vision is to fully address the current situation where, despite growth in home access to the internet, there are still more than 1 million children in the UK who have little or no access to a device or cannot get online at home, limiting their education opportunities, their chances of improving themselves and hindering their development of digital skills.
Launched as a registered charity in 2001, our aim is to ensure all children have access at home and at school to exciting learning resources so that they may fulfil their potential and overcome disadvantage. We achieve this by working in partnership with schools, parents, charities and businesses.
We know that children achieve their potential when they feel engaged with learning. So we enable teachers and parents to inspire engagement through technology.
For 15 years we have been providing independent advice and guidance to a wide variety of schools on the best way to introduce 1:1 technology, where every child has their own device to use in class and at home. During that time we have reached 250,000 children by helping 1,000 schools and all of this has been supported by 40,000 parents.
If the UK is to maintain its leading nation status then it is vital that all young people leave school confident and competent users of ICT. This is not happening, and will hold back the young people and the wider UK economy.
Learning technologies are an essential resource for a 21st century education for all ages and across the curriculum. Schools and teachers should be encouraged and supported to adopt them.
All Government funded and backed digital inclusion and digital skills programmes should be required to consider the specific needs of young people still in full-time education.
… that technology enabled learning is the best way to close the attainment gap
… that no school should make payments by parents, or their credit worthiness, a condition of whether a child is provided with personal ICT
The use of Pupil Premium funds to close the attainment gap through the provision of learning technology for use at home as well as at school is a recognised and approved course of action for schools. Schools need to consider the home access of all pupils when developing Pupil Premium strategies and be prepared to allocate funds to ensure all their children are online.
… that the loss of many sources of independent advice on ICT has left many schools uncertain how to make progress, unclear where to get impartial advice, and vulnerable to the vested interests of consultants and suppliers.
… that high quality teacher professional development is a pre-requisite of IT implementation and that schools ensure that the cost of CPD is always costed into the budget for any one-to-one programme.
… that technology is an important contribution to improving the level and quality of parental engagement. Schools need to build parental engagement into their learning programmes so that educational benefits are maximised.