It’s been five years since the COVID-19 lockdown disrupted education across the UK and around the world. With over 111,000 children now learning online in the UK — up 21% from last year — more families are reconsidering what kind of schooling best supports their children’s needs.

As part of national coverage reflecting on the anniversary, CGA’s Psychology Teacher & Head of House Beth Haresnape and CEO Penelope Barton were interviewed by BBC Radio Berkshire, Talking Life Network UK, and Radio Broadstairs, offering their insights into how families and schools have adapted — and why so many are now rethinking traditional education altogether.

Reflecting on the early days of the pandemic, Beth spoke to BBC Radio Berkshire about the sudden pivot teachers had to make within their learning approach during that time.

It felt a little bit like everyone was scrabbling together to try and make sure that we were dealing with the situation and making sure children’s learning wasn’t disrupted… but it led to some positive change as well.

Beth, who previously taught in both UK state and international schools, said that this change helped her develop new ways of working with students one-on-one, which is something she’s taken forward into her current online teaching at CGA.

It actually opened up more avenues for speaking to students individually, for more personalised learning… so, yeah, it really changed my teaching practise.

Now teaching online full-time at CGA, Beth sees how much the educational landscape has evolved. As a parent herself and living in Cornwall, she understands the appeal of online schooling for families.

Speaking to Radio Broadstairs UK, CGA CEO Penelope Barton described how COVID didn’t just change schooling temporarily — it forced a complete rethink of how learning can happen.

It just pushed everyone into this shift into online learning, made it more accessible, widespread adoption of video conferencing for synchronous learning, and really developed a bunch of new teaching approaches for virtual engagement and whilst at the time it was obviously emergency learning, I think we’ve learned a lot in the last 5 years and now it is, is here to stay.

While the initial move to online learning was reactive, what’s emerged in the years since has been far more intentional. According to Penelope, the number of students learning online has now reached a steady state, remaining significantly higher than before 2020.

So what we’re seeing now is there was this huge peak of, you know, students shifting into online education during the pandemic and it started to go down a little bit, but now we’re reaching a pretty steady number and that’s been higher than it has been well before the pandemic, and so a lot of families are transitioning to this new approach.

Those families are choosing online learning for a wide range of reasons. Some are looking for flexibility, others for wellbeing, and many for an experience that better reflects the realities of modern life.

Families looking to fit their life around school rather than school around life and just this diverse schedules, learning pace, you know, they’re really looking for something outside of that traditional sort of 9 to 3 model.

This level of adaptability is especially valuable for students with demanding personal or professional commitments.

We have a number of athletes and performers. They’re training 56 hours a day. They can’t just, you know, jump into a traditional school at the same time.

An online school built for today

One key point often missed in conversations about online learning is that not all virtual schools were designed the same way. Many schools simply moved lessons onto video calls during lockdown. CGA, however, was built from the ground up for this model, well before the world had even heard of COVID-19.

Speaking to Talking Life Network UK, Penelope shared how CGA’s foundation was different from the start.

Interested in how CGA could work for your family?

Crimson Global Academy (CGA) is an internationally accredited online school for students aged 8–18, offering live, real-time classes and globally recognised qualifications. With flexible enrolment, expert teachers and small class sizes, CGA supports students to learn at their own pace — wherever they are.

Explore what CGA offers and book a discovery call with one of our Admissions Advisors.