Oak National Academy is to be made into a new government arm’s-length body designed to provide free curriculum resources to schools across the UK, Tes understands
It is understood that the government is to give Oak the contract to run a nationwide online academy as part of its levelling-up plans, announced in a White Paper last month, in which it said the new organisation would “offer the best lessons” from “the very best teachers” online.
It is unclear whether the partners that provided free resources for distribution on the Oak platform as part of the emergency pandemic response, including Ark and United Learning, will continue to support the new body. Most had committed to allowing Oak to offer their content to schools until the end of the current academic year.
Oak National Academy has been hosted by The Reach Foundation since it launched in April 2020, when schools were closed at the start of the coronavirus crisis.
Last year, Tes revealed that Oak would remain free until spring 2022 and had received a further £2.1 million in government funding to “stay open” until the end of the current spring term to “support Covid-19 resilience and teacher workload”.
The further funding followed the £4.3 million it received to continue providing remote learning support to schools to the end of the 2020-21 academic year.
Further details, including funding and when the new body will launch, are expected to be unveiled by the Department for Education later this week.
The DfE and Oak National Academy have been approached for comment.
