Ellesmere Primary School's parent trust has announced it has secured more than 200 new laptops for pupils across its schools.

Most children have been receiving education at home since the government 'a Covid-19 enforced closure of schools, but headteachers at the North West Academy Trust's (NWAT) eight schools across Cheshire and Shropshire have identified families without access to suitable devices, leaving them at a potential disadvantage as they try to keep up with studies.

Steve Docking, chief execuitive officer at NWAT, said: "We know that teaching children from home is a difficult task, and this can be far more stressful if the technology is not good enough.

“Families with one computer have suddenly found everyone in the household needs it, and some families don't have a computer at all.

"We needed to do something – letting children fall behind just because they cannot easily access lessons is simply not an option.”

The schools have pulled out all the stops to make sure learning has continued during the lockdown, and the acquisition of the laptops - in addition to the resources the schools already had – is another step forward.

The move has been backed by Eddisbury MP Edward Timpson, who said: "Teachers are discovering pupil engagement in home learning fairly closely matches pupil attendance levels, but they also report that the quality of work returned by children is only as good as their IT equipment will allow, regardless of which school they attend.

“This all brings into sharper focus the need to address digital parity for all children, with an estimated one third of children aged five-to-16 without access to a laptop computer.

"With staged returns to school likely to continue into the autumn, the gap in educational achievement must not widen to a point where it cannot be fixed when schools fully return.

“This will undoubtedly help. But with e-learning set to become an ever more dominant feature of day to day teaching, there is now a need for a coherent and comprehensive national approach to tech connectivity and learning that will support all schools and enable a levelling up of digital access for all children.”