We need to have a mature conversation about why private school pupils have continued making progress while pupils in maintained sector schools have found it more challenging.

It's not about parental ability to spend cash on tech, but rather about values.

Bear with me. https://twitter.com/georgeeaton/status/1273623665071005697

Private schools usually place (massive generalisation!) greater value on the use of technology to support teaching and learning. As a valued resource, it has enjoyed investment of money time and effort.

This means that private schools’ digital strategies are usually well advanced and as a result have been better able to segue into remote learning more easily.

You might still be tempted to think it’s all about money but I sincerely think you’d be wrong.

Although we often only get to hear about the costly flops, technology can be done well as well as cheaply.

For example, adding the financial cost of a Chromebook or an iPad to the cost of a year’s education per pupil is doable for many schools.

However, since many school leaders and teachers retain reservations about the low value of technology, they have remained reluctant to meet the financial cost.

Some of these reservations are valid (cost is a valid one!), but most hark back to misinformed and sensationalised notions such as distraction, screen time, the preservation of hand writing and multitasking.

Like culture warriors defending statues from nonexistent assailants, proponents of the judicious use of tech often fight battles against phantom foes who are not really interested in facts or reality.

So back to value. Pupils in schools which have understood and valued what technology has to offer, not only in terms of preparing students for life in the present (the present, not the future!) but also in terms of how technology can support the processes involved in teaching...

...and learning as described by cognitive psychology and expert pedagogy, have fared better in these challenging times. These pupils happen to attend mostly, though not exclusively, private schools.

So what can the government do to ensure the cost (financial or otherwise) to pupils in the maintained sector is not as great? In my head, and this probably shows the limits of my own thinking, the answer can be summarised fairly simply: they need to value technology.