Approximately 9% of children in the UK – between 1.1 million and 1.8 million – do not have access to a laptop, desktop or tablet at home, according to Ofcom. The majority of pupils in need have had to either use parents’ mobile phones (which are often on pay as you go and can cost up to £100 a day to access data), share devices with siblings who are also learning remotely or have gone without access to any device at all.
In response to growing demand from schools, Greenham Trust has launched a Laptops for Lockdown Learning fund. This fund will provide grants to help schools across West Berkshire and north Hampshire to purchase laptops, tablets and digital devices for disadvantaged primary and secondary school pupils whose education is being impacted because they do not have access to the equipment needed for remote learning due to the current COVID lockdown.
“The pandemic has shone a stark light on the gap in provision for families in lockdown, but we must make sure this gap doesn’t continue to grow”, said Chris Boulton, CEO, Greenham Trust. “Whilst government nationally and locally are working hard to support schools in a quickly evolving situation there is clearly a need to provide additional help. We believe responsibility now falls on the voluntary sector and local community to ensure that disadvantaged children do not fall through the cracks during these difficult times when it comes to education.”
Want to join our campaign so that we can extend the reach beyond our local area?
If you are a charitable funder or company that would like to support the campaign, please contact Julian May, Head of Collaborative Funding at Greenham Trust and The Good Exchange: julian.may@thegoodexchange.com.
Schools in West Berkshire and north Hampshire that want to apply for a grant:
- If your school is not already registered on the platform start your registration here
- If your school is registered but does not have a current, live application specifically for purchasing laptops due to the COVID lockdown please create a new project here
Follow these steps to check if your school has already registered on The Good Exchange and has a live fundraising project for laptops:
- Click/tap on this link.
- Type in the name of your school or a keyword from the school’s name
- If your school appears in the search box then it has already been registered on the platform and you can log-in to the account and see if a COVID laptop fundraising project has already been created and if not, you can set-up a new fundraising project
- If you don’t have access to the account please contact The Good Exchange Support at: support@thegoodexchange.com who will be able to assist.
