Halifax Rotary Club lends a hand as pupils return to schools

As a result of the funding provided, 40 individual children have benefited at their school as 40 high quality headphone/microphone sets were purchased and are now being used very successfully.

A spokesperson from The Rotary Club of Halifax said: "As schools return to ‘normal’ it is very likely that ‘bubbles’ might be sent home because of a positive Covid test in the school community.

"One of the schools intimated if this were to occur they now have enough units for each child to continue education at home so lessons are not missed."

Whilst the Department for Education (DoE) has tried to help most schools by providing equipment to help with home learning, the Rotary Club noted that many are still under resourced. In particular computers and chromebooks have limited use just on their own.

One school stated that whilst many families have devices that they can use to access live lessons provided by the teachers, often staff, the pupils themselves and other pupils cannot hear one another, due to siblings being on their own live lessons all at the same time.

The head teacher said: “it makes for a difficult learning time, problems within households and a lot of upset for the pastoral team to manage, rather than the smooth running of lessons the school had envisaged."

Another school said that the computers that they had been provided by the DfE were basic, had no screen protectors, lacked some chargers, had no covers, school was short of headsets and even some families had no internet, so WiFi cards could be bought.