Oak National Academy – over a quarter of a million lessons streamed on first day

Over a quarter of a million lessons have been accessed on the first day @OakNational Academy 

The national online classroom and learning resources hub opened its virtual doors today (Monday 20th April) to schools and pupils across the country. Oak provides a plan of daily lessons and resources to assist teachers and parents, as they continue to support pupils until schools re-open. 

At 4pm today, over a quarter of a million lessons had been accessed by pupils up and down the country, from Scotland to the South Coast. 

140,000 students took part in an English lesson and 119,000 learnt some maths. The most popular individual lesson was for reception pupils (age 4/5) on ‘Counting up to 10’.  This was followed by reading comprehension for year 3 (age 7/8). Other topics of interest included Henry VIII and poetry comprehension. 

Created by a group of more than 40 primary and secondary school teachers, in under two weeks, Oak National Academy provides a sequenced plan of video lessons and curricular resources for teachers to use as they wish, to complement their existing teaching and planning. The strength of numbers suggests parents, too, are finding the open access website useful.

A direct response to the coronavirus situation, Oak will provide over 180 lessons a week, the equivalent of three hours a day for primary school students and four hours a day for secondary. The online classroom has the support of various education organisations including the Sutton Trust, Teach First, the Teaching Schools Council and the Confederation of School Trusts and is being backed by the Department for Education. 

Structured and planned online lessons and resources will cover core subjects from maths to art to languages. The content extends from mainstream early years reception (ages 4/5) to year 10 (ages 14/15).  Over the next few days, we’ll be working with expert teachers to create resources specifically for special educational needs pupils.

Lessons are an hour long and include a quiz, a video explanation from the teacher and a worksheet. Teachers can choose to signpost their students to all, any or none of these resources. Every lesson will be free to use for any teacher.

Matt Hood, Principal of Oak National Academy, said: 

“We have been delighted by the response to Oak National Academy on its first day. Our hope was to create a resource that is genuinely useful for schools, and play a small part in the collective effort to make sure that every child continues to learn.

“It’s truly humbling to see initial signs that this is being realised with pupils from Inverness to St Ives being supported to learn. I hope it’s a small contribution to the amazing work teachers are doing up and down the country.”

New government-backed online school opens its virtual doors to support pupils while schools are closed – Sector Response: @OakNational Academy is a collaboration between teachers and organisations across the sector to provide 180 hours of free lessons a… https://t.co/k8hpounCrF pic.twitter.com/ip1lCwcYcB

— FE News – The #FutureofEducation News Channel (@FENews) April 20, 2020