Online learning is fast becoming the ‘new normal’ for many children across North East Somerset, but it comes with a lot of challenges for families that don’t have the technology to support it. Local Labour Councillor for Paulton, Grant Johnson, has launched a campaign targeted at getting currently disused laptops into the hands of families struggling to cope.

Cllr Grant Johnson said: “Today, we are faced with the very real reality of many children struggling to access the technology they need to fully participate in home schooling.

“I’ve decided to put to one side party politics in all of this because we simply need to be getting the right technology into the hands of those children for whom home schooling has become their ‘new normal’.”

He added: “We all want our children to grow up with a decent education and we cannot allow anyone to miss out because they haven’t got the equipment available to make that a reality.”

Cllr Johnson is proposing a simple five step process, from initial donation to a child receiving the laptop they need:

• Step 1: Make him aware you have a surplus laptop to donate by contacting: 07866 769506 or by emailing: [email protected]

• Step 2: Volunteers will put a collection box on your doorstep and knock at the door. Once the laptop has been placed in the box, they will take it away to be sanitised.

• Step 3: A qualified IT technician will erase all data from the laptop and set it up to be suitable for children who are being home schooled.

• Step 4: When a laptop is ready, the team will contact a local school in the area, and they can then pass on details to a family in need of additional

support.

• Step 5: The laptop will be dropped off to the family and help support a child’s education.

Richard Stelling, who is the Director of a local IT firm and the tech guru behind the project, said: “Thousands of ageing laptops and tablets are gathering dust in drawers all across Somerset, destined to become eWaste the next time we spring clean.

“If just a fraction could be repurposed and given a new life as a home learning machine, we could help hundreds of families in our community.”

Two weeks ago, Hon. Alderman John Bull wrote a letter which featured in The Journal calling on there to be ‘a national campaign’ for online learning in order to ‘support the many families [that] are struggling to benefit…because they do not have the necessary technology’. He went on to ask, ‘could the B&NES cabinet step in to help such pupils in its area?’