Council’s Laptops for Learning scheme hands out additional hundreds of laptops to children learning from home
With support from borough schools and thanks to overwhelming donations from local people and businesses, Telford & Wrekin Council has just finished distributing an additional 400 laptops to primary and secondary school children who need these devices to learn from home.
Around 350 laptops have already been provided by the Council in the first round of this scheme last year, to children who don’t have a computer at home, so they can take part in online work.
In total, over the next three years, the lifetime of the devices, the Council’s Laptops for Learning scheme is expected to help over 2,000 borough children with their learning.
At the beginning of the year, due to the further winter lockdown challenges for education, the Council asked residents and businesses to get involved and help the Council provide additional new laptops for borough children in need of them.
-Over 180 old laptops in good conditions have been donated by residents and businesses. The Council collected them and traded them in to buy new laptops.
-Over £16,000 have been donated through the “Laptops for Learning” GoFundMe page towards new laptops.
Councillor Shirley Reynolds, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People, Education and Lifelong Learning said: “We are very grateful to everyone who has supported the “Laptops for Learning” scheme, to all our residents and borough businesses for their amazing donations. We have had some large donations from local businesses and we will be writing to them directly to say thank you.
“Their contribution has helped to significantly add another 400 brand new laptops to help borough children in primary and secondary schools who have no such device to learn at home on.
“It demonstrates once again how our community have rallied around to show how we care for young people in this borough, particularly at these challenging times.
““With the devices handed over from one year group to the next, the total number of laptops for this scheme (over 750) will help thousands more young people over the next three years.”
Donations for “Laptops for Learning” scheme are still open, details on how to get involved are on www.telford.gov.uk/laptopsforlearning
Photo: Deliveries of laptops at Telford Priory School (left to right, Councillor Shirley Reynolds, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People, Education and Lifelong Learning and Stacey Jordan, Telford Priory School Headteacher)
