Gavin Williamson confirms return of free school meals voucher scheme
Fiona Simpson
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
The government will relaunch its free school meals voucher scheme to support disadvantaged families during the third coronavirus lockdown in England, Gavin Williamson has said.
The Education Secretary told MPs that “extra funding” would be provided to support children eligible for free school meals through either food parcels or supermarket vouchers.
It is understood the scheme will be run by corporate service provider Edenred who supplied vouchers during the first lockdown and over the summer and Christmas breaks.
“Where schools cannot offer food parcels or use local solutions, we will ensure a national voucher scheme is in place so every eligible child can access free school meals while their school remains closed,” Williamson said.
The Department for Education has yet to provide full details of the latest rollout of vouchers.
The announcement came as Williamson laid out contingency plans for the most recent closures of primary and secondary schools.
He also revealed plans to boost the number of laptops and tablets provided to children without access to devices to carry out home learning.
Over 50,000 laptops and tablets were delivered to schools across the country on Monday 4 January, and over 100,000 will be delivered in total during the first week of term, DfE has confirmed.
Meanwhile, the department has partnered with mobile network operators, including EE, Three, Tesco Mobile, Smarty, Sky Mobile and Virgin Mobile, to provide free data to disadvantaged families until July this year amid concerns over the cost of online learning for families using pay as you go services.
Williamson also said schools will be expected to offer pupils online lessons and a set number of hours of remote education for pupils – increased from the government’s previous minimum expectations.
"Ofsted will play an important role in holding schools to account for the quality of remote education," he added.
The cancellation of this year’s GCSE and A level exams was also confirmed with the government saying it is “going to put our trust in teachers rather than algorithms”.
The Education Secretary said grades would not be adjusted using an algorithm which sparked chaos following the first lockdown.
“Although exams are the fairest way we have of accessing what a student knows, the impact of this pandemic now means it is not possible to have these exams this year.
“I can confirm that GCSEs, A levels and AS level exams will not go ahead this summer. This year we are going to put our trust in teachers rather than algorithms.
“The department and Ofqual had already worked up a range of contingency options. While the details will need to be fine tuned in consultation with Ofqual the exam boards and teaching representative organisations, I can confirm now that I wish to use a form of teacher assessed grades, with training and support provided to ensure these are awarded fairly and consistently across the country,” Williamson said.
