David Farnor | On 21, Jul 2020

BBC Bitesize Daily has scored more than 5 million requests on BBC iPlayer, as parents and children turned to the BBC’s online educational programming to help with home-schooling during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Beeb opened the doors to its virtual school on 20th April, and delivered 150 online lessons and 30 dedicated TV programmes each week to support children learning at home. Along with the millions of iPlayer requests, the Bitesize online website was visited by 3.8 million each week, up 121 per cent year-on-year, with 1,800 lessons provided in total. Famous faces included in the initiative included Sir David Attenborough, Jodie Whittaker, Liam Payne, Jesse Lingard, Dina Asher Smith and many more.

The curriculum-led effort covered core subjects such as maths, English and science alongside history, geography, religious studies, music, computer science and design and technology, while BBC Four also aired documentaries on arts, history and science aimed at older students – you can see our guide to the home-schooling line-up here.

Now, the virtual school is closing up, but the programming will remain online for the remainder of the summer and all BBC iPlayer programmes will be live online for the next 12 months. Sir David Attenborough has also set a challenge to children to create their own nature diary over the holidays accompanied by special lessons to introduce children to the nature and wildlife communities around them.

Helen Foulkes, Head of BBC Education, says: “In April, we said we would be there for parents and children in navigating home schooling and these incredible figures show just how many have come to us. We are incredibly proud of what has been achieved during what has been a truly difficult time. We hope that through this pandemic, parents and children have discovered how vast and informative BBC Bitesize is and that they will continue to come to us throughout that academic journey.”

BBC Bitesize will then continue to support, parents and children next term as they return to school. A ‘catch-up’ service for Primary children focusing on key concepts will be available as will engaging learning resources for all children to be used at school or at home. Learning guides for all exam boards for GCSE and Nationals/Highers students will be on offer and regular ‘Live Lessons’ featuring famous faces will bring schools and year groups together to learn.

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