A BOURNEMOUTH school has received a vital donation of technology to aid pupils with their learning amid the pandemic.

The Bourne Academy, in Hadow Road, was the recipient of four brand new laptops.

The school has said it is "delighted" and "extremely grateful" to local company Summit Land & Developments who made the donation in order to help pupils with their learning.

The laptops were distributed during the most recent national lockdown to help the Academies families in need.

Business Director at The Bourne Academy, Caroline Gobell said: "We were absolutely thrilled and grateful to have received these donated laptops from Summit Land & Developments.

"The laptops made a huge difference to some of our students who had limited access to remote learning while working from home.

"Many families struggled during the national lockdown and these laptops proved to be lifelines, taking the pressure off family life as a whole, as well as preventing the widening of a gap between those children with enough resources at home, and those with nothing.

"This sort of difference is life changing."

This has not been the only time The Bourne Academy has received a donation of laptops for its pupils.

Earlier this year, simulator developer Drilling Systems donated ten, working used laptops to the Bournemouth school to help disadvantaged pupils learn from home during the lockdown.

Following an IT upgrade, the company had a number of spare laptops, all with Windows 10, webcams and microphones to support home learning, and donated them to The Bourne Academy's students.

The school, which has almost 1,000 students aged 11-18 years old, is sited in one of the UK's most deprived boroughs and almost 40 per cent of its learners live in poverty.

Many of its students have difficult home lives and have struggled throughout the pandemic to access online learning with limited resources, so the laptops that have been donated throughout the year have, and will, go a long way to help.