With news that around one in five schools have had a positive coronavirus case and the number of schools closing because of the virus has doubled, remote learning has never been more necessary.

New figures from the Oak National Academy remote learning website show that it has seen a major rise in the number of people accessing its lessons in the past month.

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Here are five key facts about how people have been using the platform to learn online in the past month.

1. The number of people accessing Oak lessons has doubled

Figures provided byOak National Academy show that the number of people that have been accessing the site has risen from 121,000 in the week beginning Monday 7 September to 249,000 in the week beginning 21 September as Covid-19 has led to more pupils learning from home.

2. Key stage 2 lessons are the most popular so far 

Since the start of the academic year, lessons aimed at primary school-age pupils at key stage 2 have been proving the most popular so far.

Figures show they account for more than 40 per cent of the overall lessons that have been accessed in September.

3. Core subjects attract the most interest

Oak National Academy told Tes that English and maths account for the majority of lessons across all ages - at 850,000 combined.

This is followed by science - which has seen 370,000 lessons accessed.

Combined Science is said to be the most popular GCSE subject, with more than 90,000 lessons accessed, although Oak National Academy has said it also offers biology, physics and chemistry separately “and these are popular at KS4, too”.

4. Where are Oak lessons accessed the most?

Unsurprisingly, some of the country’s biggest cities have the most users of the platform.

Oak has revealed that its top five locations for the numbers of people accessing remote lessons are currently London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds.

However, the sixth-highest is, perhaps surprisingly, Blackburn, which features ahead of areas with larger populations such as Sheffield, Bristol and Nottingham.  

5. Oak has launched new guidance on implementing remote teaching

Oak National Academy has launched new guidance on implementing remote teaching for schools. It is also running a weekly webinar in which it says it can answer questions and offer support. So far more than 7,000 teachers and school leaders have joined this.