Online learning usually amounts to “little more than revision” and cannot be used to teach pupils new concepts, a leading headteachers’ union figure has said.

Ruth Davies, the president of the NAHT school leaders’ union, also told MPs that supporting disadvantaged pupils to catch up after Covid-19 will not be achievable through quick fixes. 

She said people needed to be realistic about what can be achieved through online learning if pupils are not able to be at school because of the pandemic.

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Ms Davies was speaking to a Women and Equalities Committee hearing today on the impact of the coronavirus on education.

She said: “I think sometimes we can be under the impression that if the normal classroom learning situation isn’t available we can just switch it online and things will carry on as normal but these are two very very different platforms.

“Schools have approached it in lots of different ways. In some settings there might have been daily timetables, there might even have been some face-to-face catch-up teaching times with individual members of staff. 

“Some schools would have utilised existing online learning platforms; others have had to sometimes start from scratch.

“Teachers were drawing on a range of online learning resources and sometimes designing their own.

“So the commitment was there, the will was there, but just speaking as a teacher, online learning in that way amounts usually to little more than revision. It is not possible to teach new concepts and skills entirely in an online setting. The two formats are not interchangeable.

“There is nothing that comes close to that face-to-face learning. And I think we have to be realistic in terms of looking forward to whatever the rest of 2020 and 2021 holds for us. 

“Yes, there has to be a commitment to ensure that all pupils regardless of their personal home circumstances have equity of opportunity to access the online platforms.

“But we have to remember as well that there is a limit to what the online platforms can achieve however skilful and creative schools are in terms of deploying them.”

Angela Donkin, chief social scientist for the National Foundation for Educational Research, told MPs on the committee that in May a quarter of pupils did not have access to the technology they needed - either good wi-fi broadband or a laptop.

And she said the despite the government’s laptop scheme this figure remained the same in July.