In the week before lockdown began and schools were closed across the UK, the BBC's Children's and Education department realised it had a special duty in this national emergency. "At that moment, we started to see stretching out before us what the BBC should do in terms of education during the pandemic. We set the ball rolling," says Alice Webb, director of BBC Children's and Education. The Salford-based teams boldly gambled that most British youngsters could lose half a year of formal education. They would become reliant on makeshift home schooling and online contact with teachers and marking apps. As a result, the department created a huge, 14-week programme for the summer term, which started on 20 April, hailed as "the BBC's biggest push on education in its history".
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