NO new lessons will be uploaded to the BBC’s daily home-schooling service net week – because pupils in England and Wales are on holiday.
Parents and teachers alike have utilised BBC Bitesize’s daily lockdown lessons, described by director general Tony Hall as the “biggest education effort” the broadcaster has ever undertaken, with the service registering more than five million hits in its first week of operation.
But next week primary and secondary pupils in Scotland and Northern Ireland, who do not get the full week off, will not have access to new classes.
The wife of a Scottish primary school teacher, who has asked not be identified, has said for the BBC to put the service on hold while pupils from just two of the four UK nations take time off shows the service is “infuriatingly geared up to the English education system”.
She told The National that she was shocked when her husband, who continues to guide his pupils’ learning experience from home during lockdown, told her he wouldn’t be able to direct the children to the free resource next week.
She said: “Often I do find the BBC and the expression ‘the EBC’, the English Broadcasting Corporation, seems to become interchangeable really quite frequently.
“Why do that? You’re not telling me they couldn’t have put an extra week in? It could have been done – because the teachers do use the resource, they refer to it, they don’t necessarily follow slavishly because they’ve got their own resources, their own ideas that they develop.”
She explained while her partner doesn’t use the system exclusively, it’s been a great resource for him to pass on to kids struggling to stay motivated and complete school tasks in lockdown. “It’s just one less tool in the box that they’ve got next week,” she added.
Classes are due to resume on the widely praised site from June 1, and in the meantime pupils across the UK will be able to access previous lessons from the service.
A BBC spokesperson told The National: “As we reach the midway point in our delivery of Bitesize Daily we are taking a planned break in daily lessons.
“During the break, and to reflect the national curriculum, BBC Scotland will continue to deliver up to two hours of educational programming every day on the BBC Scotland channel.”
“Online, pupils can continue to access the hundreds of lessons already published to Bitesize Daily whilst the Bitesize website continues to provide lots of articles and guides specifically made for learners in Scotland across a range of subjects.”
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