Community works together to secure more IT equipment for Fife school

Over the last few months, work has been going on behind the scenes to bring the school, its Parent Council, local community group Laptops For Learning Fife (LFLF) together with local businesses and community-based funders to try to make sure no young person is left behind when it comes to essential IT for home learning.

The school, which recently benefitted from a donation of 44 chromebooks from the Scottish Government as well as additional IT resources from Fife Council, is now set to receive more devices for pupils to use at home, as well as other IT equipment including USB visualisers which will help the delivery of live lessons, thanks to grants obtained by the Parent Council and donations of refurbished laptops from LFLF.

Depute rector Brian Harris, who has been working with the parent group and LFLF, said he was delighted with the huge amount of local support and hoped this will encourage other businesses to come forward with support.

“We are very grateful to the New Park Educational Trust, the University of St Andrews, the St Andrews Ball Committee, Cupar Common Good fund and others, for their extremely generous contributions,” he said. “We have found that many young people, while they may have mobile phones for homeworking, really need computers especially for the live learning sessions we have started this term. We are trying our best to ensure equity across as many families as possible especially those having to share with more than one other sibling or parents trying to work from home.

“We have already allocated the devices from the Scottish Government and Fife Council as well as those already purchased by the parent council following the last lockdown to those who were in most need and we hope that another survey of parents will identify any further need.”

Karen Brown, chair of Bell Baxter Parent Council, said: “It has been encouraging to have so much support locally especially with LFLF choosing Bell Baxter High School as the first school they will support with refurbished laptops and donations towards our IT appeal.

If you would like to make a donation or know of an organisation that may be able to provide grant funding please contact [email protected]. You can also support the school by signing up to www.easyfundraising.org.uk.