Secondary schools will remain closed for at least an extra week, under Government plans, meaning the vast majority of students will not return to the classroom until after mid-January.
Ministers have agreed to delay the return of most pupils until 18 January, while those due to be taking GCSEs and A-levels will not go back to school until 11 January, in a bid to slow the fresh wave of Covid-19 infections.
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Students with exams – those in Years 11 and 13 – had been expected to start school from 4 January, but this will now be pushed back by a week, meaning only children of key workers will attend school next week.
The Government hopes the extra week will provide headteachers with sufficient time to set up mass testing on school sites to begin regularly testing pupils once they reopen.
Mass testing
The plans, first reported by TES, will see Year 11 and 13 students given priority for testing from 11 January, before testing is provided for the rest of the pupils from 18 January. Primary schools will reopen as planned from 4 January.
Ministers from the Department for Education, the Department for Health and Social Care and the Cabinet Officer hammered out the proposals, before presenting them to unions on Tuesday afternoon.
Heads’ leaders were furious after they were left out of the discussions that will mean further upheaval for parents and students.
Senior Tory MP and chair of the Education Select Committee Robert Halfon urged Boris Johnson to make a statement on schools, demanding a “route map” for the education sector out of the pandemic.
“We can’t have schools as a revolving door, with parents, the teaching profession and support staff not knowing from one day to the next what is going to happen,” Mr Halfon said.
The decision to keep secondary schools closed for an additional week came amid mounting pressure from the Government’s scientific advisers, who warned that primary and secondary school closures may be necessary to keep coronavirus infection rates down.
Experts have warned that the new, more infectious strain of Covid-19 has meant current restrictions are not sufficient to stop the increase in Covid cases and could require schools to close, ushering in measures first introduced in March.
Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the Government’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats advisory group (Nervtag), said the new strain had made it harder to try to keep control of the virus while maintaining “some semblance of normal society”.
“This new variant has just made that more difficult, we have even less wiggle room,” he told the BBC.
“Clearly nobody wants to keep schools shut. But if that’s the only alternative to having exponentially growing numbers of hospitalisations, that may be required at least for a period.”
Delay
Steve Chalke, founder of Oasis, one of the largest multi-academy trusts in England, suggested ministers should delay reopening.
“We would suggest a week or two’s delay to think it through, to do it well – and we think that if you really care about kids you would do this well – to invest now, to give time now makes sense,” Mr Chalke said.
The Government announced on Tuesday that 1,500 Armed Forces personnel would be deployed to help secondary schools and colleges to deliver mass testing to ensure students can return safely.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMidWh0dHBzOi8vaW5ld3MuY28udWsvbmV3cy9lZHVjYXRpb24vc2Nob29scy1nby1iYWNrLXdoZW4tcmV0dXJuLXNlY29uZGFyeS1wdXBpbHMtZGVsYXllZC1nb3Zlcm5tZW50LWNvdmlkLXBsYW5zLTgxMTMyNNIBeWh0dHBzOi8vaW5ld3MuY28udWsvbmV3cy9lZHVjYXRpb24vc2Nob29scy1nby1iYWNrLXdoZW4tcmV0dXJuLXNlY29uZGFyeS1wdXBpbHMtZGVsYXllZC1nb3Zlcm5tZW50LWNvdmlkLXBsYW5zLTgxMTMyNC9hbXA?oc=5
2020-12-29 17:25:00Z
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