Leeds based care home group donates laptops to help children with home schooling during lockdown

Maria Mallaband Care Group (MMCG) has reached out to the city's schools to offer support to children learning at home during lockdown by donating repurposed laptops.

The care home group, which has more than 80 homes across the UK, has already donated two laptops to Park Spring Primary School in Bramley and another two to Parklands Primary School in Seacroft.

MMCG "jumped at the chance" to help children when IT helpdesk supervisor Chris Holland suggested the idea to the group initially.

Chris said: "With children once again home schooling due to the national lockdown, having the right laptops at home has never been more important.

"When you hear about children having to share phones to try and keep up with their studies – or being stuck without any laptops at all – your heart goes out to them.

“I knew we could do something to help, and I was so pleased that my suggestion to donate our old laptops was picked up so speedily.”

Chris has led the project with the IT Director at MMCG, John Housecroft.

John added: "Many of us know children are struggling at home with home schooling, and in some circumstances don’t have adequate laptops to work from.

“A large organisation such as ours invariably has laptops no longer being used or no longer up to spec, but which would be more than adequate for children accessing learning on-line.

“Our IT team are doing a brilliant job getting our old laptops cleared of data and files, and ready for a new life. Getting these laptops into schools and into the hands of the children who need them is a great result all around.”

The care home group's headquarters is on Gelderd Road in Leeds and was established in 1996.

Rachel Horan, headteacher at Park Spring said: “Ensuring children can work and learn effectively at home so important right now, but a shortage of laptops is one of the biggest challenges we’re encountering.

“We are so grateful to Maria Mallaband for reaching out to support us in this way.

"This donation will make an enormous difference and help us support our pupils to continue to achieve their best despite the circumstances we all find ourselves in at the moment.”

Chris Dyson, headteacher at Parklands, said: “No one wants to see children being left behind during this time, but we know that not every family has sufficient laptops to go around, especially when there are several children at home all trying to keep up with online learning.

“Sadly the school just doesn’t have enough computers and tablets for everyone who needs them, so we’d like to say a big thank you to Maria Mallaband for these additional laptops, which will make the home learning experience so much better for children in two more of our families.”

MMCG is hoping to help many more schools in Leeds and are inviting schools' IT departments to get in touch at [email protected] to apply for laptops that they may need.

Click here to find out more about the Maria Mallaband Care Group.