Alison, a 16-year-old from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, is among thousands of students across the UK who have struggled to cope with the pressures of home schooling during the lockdown – her education suffers.
“It was so much harder to concentrate at home. At school you can put your head down, but at home it’s a lot harder,” she said.
Although places like Barnsley are a fundamental part of the government’s “leveling” agenda, local leaders say their coronavirus education “catching up” plans are failing to produce.
Alison, right, received mentorship from Mariya, left, as part of the GROW program
Therefore, rather than relying on the central government, some local authorities and schools are digging into their pockets to finance the needs of students who have fallen behind.
Barnsley Council has awarded £ 176,000 in core resource funding to the GROW Mentorship Program for secondary schools in the area (some schools also fund it themselves) – a catch-up initiative led by Sheffield Hallam University and the Northern Powerhouse Partnership which has been hailed as a local success story.
The program focuses on mentoring students who have disengaged from learning due to months of school closures and who would otherwise have gone unnoticed. It takes a ‘trauma-informed’ approach, focusing on the mental well-being of students with the tailored support of local graduate mentors.
When the pandemic Struck for the first time, the Sheffield Hallam team consulted with local schools on how they could help students stay afloat. They’ve put together a package that doesn’t just prioritize extra tuition – a key part of the government’s flagship catch-up program.
A more holistic remedial approach is also supported by school leaders – a recent National Association of Headteachers survey found that while 70% supported individual tutorials, almost two-thirds …
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Source: news.sky.com
This notice was published: 2021-06-19 23:58:00