Open letter to Camden Councillor Angela Mason, Cabinet Member for Best Start for Children & Families

• MY child is a pupil in Year 10 at a Camden secondary school and, like many other parents in this and other schools in the borough, I am astounded by the lack of online lessons available to our secondary school children.

My daughter has been working by herself for six weeks, with work set online, which she can send into teachers or mark herself.

Teachers respond by email and there are set times to contact the teachers – which amounts to an hour or so a week per subject.

Her form teacher, bless her, rings her up every week. This is now likely to go on for another three weeks, at least.

I repeat, she is in Year 10, one of the most vital years in teaching GCSE content. She was offered two paltry online classroom lessons last week, but they were cancelled at the last minute, how demoralising is that?

This is in stark contrast to state schools from other boroughs, who appear more than able to provide online tuition.

Also nearby private schools have been providing four hours a day online classroom tuition since lockdown began.

This contrast must be equally frustrating for teachers and pupils.

Whether the lack of provision is due to software licensing issues or safeguarding issues I don’t know.

What I do know, and see, is that other schools and councils have got over these issues and are providing progressive education to their pupils using all aspects of online education to push on and teach the required syllabus.

I do hope that Camden Council’s seeming lack of technical progress in this area is not due to an ideological roadblock.

This should not be about blaming other political parties, as an excuse for lack of progress, but seeing what can be done now to stop Camden secondary pupils falling further behind.

I look forward to hearing from you on the above and to see what the problems are and what progress, if any, is on offer.

ELIZABETH CASE
Address supplied