Outwood Family To Provide Almost 500 Students With Computers

The Outwood Family has announced that it will provide almost 500 students in the Trust with laptops thanks to a government scheme to help make remote learning accessible at home for students.

Outwood Grange Academies Trust will provide the almost 500 students with laptops, as well as a number of students with 4G routers, to ensure they are able to continue their learning remotely.  

The equipment was made available for children without access to a computer who receive support from a social worker, care leavers, and disadvantaged children in year 10 that are due to sit their GCSEs next year.

The Trust is headquartered in Wakefield  and sponsors numerous secondary and primary academies in the region, including Outwood Grange Academy and Outwood Primary Academy Kirkhamgate which opened its new £4m school building last year.

Martyn Oliver, CEO of the Outwood Family, said:

“We are thankful to the government for implementing this scheme and we are delighted to be able to offer this IT equipment to those students who need it most.

“At Outwood, we believe in putting students first and delivering this equipment to the students who need it most is an example of this. It is allowing them to continue their education with certainty, during what is a very uncertain time.”

The government scheme was introduced earlier this year to try and ensure children did not miss out on education due to not being able to take part in online school lessons from home. This is part of a wider push to make remote education accessible for all while schools remain under opening restrictions due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Nationally, the Outwood Family will provide almost 500 students with laptops and over 200 with 4G routers to ensure they can continue their education by accessing online resources.

The trust, which sponsors over thirty academies in the North of England, was one of the first to release its online home learning resources, which were made available to all and not just students and teachers within the Outwood Grange Academies Trust. 

Primary teachers within Outwood were also involved in the creation and delivery of English content for Oak National Academy, helping the national effort.