What is the Oak National Academy and how can you access the lessons during the lockdown?

Today would normally be the beginning of the Summer Term for UK schools, but kids are now having to resort to online alternatives to stop the spread of coronavirus.

As was mentioned by Education Secretary Gavin Williamson during last night's coronavirus briefing, the government has created alternative resources for pupils and families including Oak National Academy.

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Key workers should still send their children to school as they did before Easter and there is hope that the rest of their friends will be able to join them in June.

In the meantime the new Oak National Academy (ONA) online platform has been launched to help parents homeschool their children.

Since this morning's launch, ONA has catered to over 25,000 students who are already logged in.

So what is the new education portal, how do you access it and what age range does it cover?

What is the Oak National Academy?

From Monday April 20, parents, kids and teachers can access 180 lessons a week for every year group from Reception through to year 10, through .

The school has laid out weekly learning objectives for every year group up to Year 10 as Year 11 should be revising for the now-cancelled GCSE's.

The portal will provide the equivalent of three hours of lessons a day for primary students and four hours for secondary, with each lesson lasting an hour.

This adds up to 180 hours of lesson time that will be continually produced until we're out of the woods with coronavirus.

Who created the Oak National Academy?

The online school has been set up by more than 40 teachers and is funded by the Department of Education to provide video lessons for students, with each lesson coming with a corresponding quiz and worksheet.

Headed by Government Education Adviser Matt Hood, the team has set up online resources to help homeschooling parents and teachers who have been working online since lockdown began in March.

The teachers behind the programme come from across the UK and will cover key topics such as language, art and maths.

The top teacher team comes from a range of backgrounds, from top-performing schools and trusts including Reach Academy Feltham, Ark, Oasis and Outwood Grange.

There is also information for parents, other teachers and students on how to get the most out of ONA resources.

Announcing the launch yesterday, Gavin Williamson thanked students and their parents for their sacrifices in "these not normal times".

He said: "I want nothing more than to see schools back, getting them back to normal, making sure children are sat around learning, and experiencing the joy of being at school, but I can’t give you a date."

How to access the Oak National Academy resources

You can , where resources went live this morning.

From here, you can view lessons by subject and level, or you can follow their planned weekly schedule.

The best way to access the ONA is via Chrome, but it works on tablets and all other platforms too.

There are some teething issues, such as a lack of subtitles for the deaf and you can't go back on the video's, but for the most part the launch seems to have gone well and reviews are very positive.

Are there any other similar official platforms that will help educate kids?

The BBC has launched its own star-studded education service today too, which features David Attenborough, Sergio Agüero, Danny Dyer, as well as lessons from 200 top UK teachers.

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