Tag: State School

Learn English with the News – 2m children in UK ‘have done almost no school work in lockdown’

The COVID-19 pandemic has created trying times, and one of the areas most affected by the lockdown is education. Students in the UK have suffered a remarkable amount, and today’s “Learn English with the News” aims to shed light on the situation.

The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist and always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored. 

Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.

This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.

So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:

Adapted from this article.

Now that you’ve had a listen, let’s put your knowledge to the test with some of our vocabulary and comprehension exercises:

2m children in UK ‘have done almost no school work in lockdown’ | Definition Match

Put the following words to the correct definitions.

2m children in UK ‘have done almost no school work in lockdown’ | Fill in the Blank

Fill the empty spaces with the proper words.

2m children in UK ‘have done almost no school work in lockdown’ | True or False

Indicate which sentences are true and which ones are false.

 

Full Text

Private school pupils are five times more likely to get near-full-time teaching online during lockdown as those at state schools, according to research that suggests far less schoolwork is being done at home than previously thought. The study, by the UCL Institute of Education, found that 2 million children in the UK – about one in five – had done no school work at all, or managed less than an hour a day while studying at home. On average, pupils spent 2.5 hours a day doing schoolwork – half what was estimated in an earlier survey – while just 17% have put in more than four hours a day since schools closed in March as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Prof Francis Green, the lead author of the study, said its findings painted a gloomy picture of lost schooling and low amounts of schoolwork at home. Seven out of 10 state school children have had no online lessons at all, or less than one a day, the research found. Almost a third of private schools have been providing four or more online lessons every day, compared with 6% of state schools providing such a comprehensive timetable. The digital divide has also played a key role in significant discrepancies in home study. Nearly all private schoolchildren who formed part of the survey had access to a computer at home, while one in five of those on free school meals had no access. Private schools have also provided more offline work during lockdown – 31% provided four pieces or more, compared with 22% of state schools. In half of private schools, pupils have spent
upwards of four hours a day on schoolwork, compared with just 18% of state schools. Children from poorer families who are eligible for free school meals (FSM) are at a particular disadvantage, with 15% getting four or more pieces of offline schoolwork compared with 21% of non-FSM pupils. Meanwhile, 11% of those on free school meals spent more than four hours on schoolwork compared with nearly a fifth of their non-FSM classmates. The findings came as secondary school pupils who are due to sit exams next summer began to return to class for some face-to-face time ahead of the summer holiday.

 

And that’s it for today’s English lesson, where you can improve your English with the news and current events. Do you have any comments or special requests for us for the next edition of Learn English with the News? Be sure to leave any feedback you have in the comments section below, as we would love to help you on your quest to learn the English language!

For other Learn English with the News segments, be sure to check out the rest of our posts:

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