The use of remote Oak National Academy lessons yesterday was double that of the daily average logged during the Omicron wave last year, new data shows.
The NEU teaching union held the first of seven planned strike days yesterday in a dispute over pay, with more than half of schools across England reported to be fully or partly closed.
Usage data published by Oak this morning revealed that 282,280 pupils used Oak yesterday, 17 times more than the average daily pupil figure last month (16,615 pupils per day).
The figure is also twice as much as the daily peak recorded in January 2022 during the Omicron-variant wave of the Covid-19 pandemic (130,545).
Overall, Oak’s data showed there were 886,605 lesson starts yesterday.
With 4.3 million lessons taken so far in the 2022-23 school year, this means that a fifth (20 per cent) of all lessons were started yesterday.
Three-quarters (75.2 per cent) of the lessons started yesterday were key stage 3, up from half of all lesson starts on an average day in January this year.
Under a fifth (16.3 per cent) of lesson starts were key stages 1 and 2.
The largest increase in usage by region was in the North West and East Midlands, which both saw an increase of 3 per cent.
However, the average proportion of lessons started in London was just 18 per cent, down from a daily average of 27 per cent.
Last year, Oak was relaunched as a new curriculum resources quango.
The government is currently facing a joint legal challenge from the education resources sector over its decision to establish Oak National Academy as a publicly funded arm’s-length body.
Oak is set to receive £43 million in government funding over the next three years, with plans to spend £8 million on purchasing new lesson resources.
