Return to school chaos for millions: Confused parents rage

1.9k

View
comments

Gavin Willliamson today refused to apologise as raging parents face schools chaos – with primaries on neighbouring streets getting different orders on whether to shut their doors and fears thousands of secondaries will not open fully until the Spring.  

The Education Secretary batted away criticism over the dramatic U-turn that means around a million children at primaries in Covid ‘hotspots’ in London, Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex and Kent will stay at home when term begins on January 4.

Amid signs of a bitter row in Cabinet, Mr Williamson said the government was having to move at ‘incredible pace’ due to the mutant strain of coronavirus.

But the decisions over what areas are classified as high-risk were branded ‘illogical’ today, with little clarity over the criteria being used to set the rules. London councils are calling for all classes to be cancelled.

Secondaries also face an anxious wait to find out whether they will be able to reopen fully on the new target date of January 18. 

The Department for Education is racing to put a mass testing system in place, but has warned the curbs could need to be even wider than for primaries as older children are more likely to spread the disease. The situation is not expected to become clear until the next review date of January 13.   

One parent said today that the situation is ‘totally ridiculous’, adding: ‘The school at one end of the street I live in will be closed while the school at the other end is open’. Another said their area had been ‘split in two’ with ‘schools on one side of the road closed, the other side open’. 

Around two-thirds of schools in the capital will be shut for an extra fortnight from Monday – meaning there are many households where one child will be forced to stay at home while another will still go to school in a neighbouring borough.   

With most secondary schools shut until at least January 18 – or even indefinitely – millions of children face weeks or even months of ‘inadequate’ virtual classes that the head of Ofsted believes sets back children ‘years’, particularly those from working class backgrounds. 

Experts say that months at home during the first lockdown saw many youngsters regress academically, socially and developmentally with only vulnerable children and the children of key workers in the worst-hit areas allowed to return to their desks next week 

The chaos and division over schools came as: 

• Boris Johnson warned of a new ‘reality’ with mutant Covid rampant on Wednesday as he plunged virtually the whole of England into brutal lockdown until the Spring – with the UK recording 981 deaths in the worst daily toll since April and vaccines the only hope of escape; 
• NHS England medical director Professor Stephen Powis urged people to see in 2021 ‘within the rules’ because ‘Covid loves a crowd’; 
• London ICUs have asked major hospitals in Yorkshire if they will agree to take some patients as wards hospital admissions exceed peak of first wave;

Labour’s London Mayor Sadiq Khan and party colleagues running the city’s councils are pushing for all schools in London to shut as UK daily infections hit 50,000 again yesterday and headteachers in Tier 4 areas have hinted they could defy the Government and close anyway. Union members have even called for teachers to go on strike.

Jo Riley, who runs a school in Hackney, tweeted today: ‘Since March 2020 I’ve tried to be open & transparent with my school community about the decisions we’ve made. Yesterday’s announcement has broken me. I can’t look them in the eye and say our school is open on the 4th when they can see the stats’.  

Greenwich Council leader Dan Thorpe, who tried to shut schools before Christmas, said: ‘I’m extremely concerned that Gavin Williamson has made the wrong decision today for schools, teachers, families & children in Greenwich. The decision doesn’t make sense and I will be doing everything in my power to make sure we get the right solution’. 

Plans for all primary school pupils to return to classrooms next week were halted last night as Mr Johnson vowed to ‘redouble’ efforts to stem the mutant strain of coronavirus.

Primary schools in heavily afflicted areas such as London, Essex and Kent will now not be allowed to reopen on January 4 as ministers had hoped. 

Only vulnerable children and the children of key workers will be allowed to return to their desks, while the rest will be forced to attend lessons online.

The Prime Minister also pushed back the start of term for the bulk of secondary school pupils by a week, meaning they are now set to return on January 18 rather than January 11 – when only Years 11 and 13 preparing for exams will go back.

Mr Johnson even cast doubt over this return date and said: ‘I want to stress that depending on the spread of the disease it may be necessary to take further action in their cases as well in the worst affected areas.’

In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Williamson struggled to explain how the restrictions on primary schools were being decided. 

He told Sky News: ‘The work that was done with the Department of Health who identified areas where it was either a very high rate or, using their latest data, were seeing very sharp increases in the number of cases or equally the pressures on hospitals in that area and the clinical needs.

‘These were all the considerations that were taken into account but what I want to say, and this will come as no surprise to you whatsoever, I want to see schools, any school, that’s closed for those first two weeks, opening at the earliest possible opportunity.’

Asked whether he apologised to parents, teachers and children for the notice given for the measures, Mr Williamson said: ‘I think we all recognise that if we go back a few weeks where there was no new variant of Covid, none of us would have been expecting us to be having to take the actions, whether it’s in regards to schools, whether it’s in regards to Tier 4 moves that the Government has had to make, but it’s the Government that’s having to respond at incredible pace to a global pandemic and then a new variant of that virus.

‘It’s not what any of us would want to do, it’s not a decision that any of us would be wanting to have to implement, but we’ve had to do that because circumstances have dictated it.

‘I think the British public expect the Government to do what is right and even though that is sometimes uncomfortable, it is taking the right actions, dealing with these extraordinary times.’

Mr Williamson said he was ‘absolutely confident’ schools will return as per the new staggered timetable.

He said: ‘We are absolutely confident that all schools are returning. You’re going to see over 85 per cent of primary schools returning on Monday morning, you’re going to be seeing exam cohorts going back right across the country on January 11.’ 

Defending the efforts to introduce mass testing in secondary schools, Mr Williamson said: ‘There’s absolutely no reason that schools won’t be ready.’

He said £78 million of additional funding, equipment such as personal protective equipment (PPE) and support from the military would help them get mass testing programmes set up.

Mr Williamson said: ‘We really want to hold their hands, support them, help them. We’re asking everyone right across the country to do pretty extraordinary things at the moment.’

Drawing on his two school-age daughters’ experience during the pandemic, Mr Williamson said: ‘How much they (children) miss out by not being in schools, that’s why we’re taking these extraordinary actions because it’s always best to have children in school if it’s possible to do so.’ 

However, Robert Halfon, chair of the Education Select Committee and Tory MP for Harlow, voiced fears for an ‘epidemic of educational poverty’.

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘I do worry very much about children not being in school. I understand we have to balance the risks of coronavirus, absolutely, and do everything possible to keep staff and children safe, but I also worry about the impact of lost learning on the children…

‘This is very, very, very difficult all around and I think the impact on educational learning and mental health is perhaps the two most important things because these are things that are very difficult to deal with.

‘We want to deal with coronavirus but we don’t want an epidemic of educational poverty and mental health crises amongst young people in our country.’

Mr Johnson held a Downing Street press briefing last night after all of England – except for 2,000 residents on the Isles of Scilly – was marked for the toughest two coronavirus tiers from midnight. 

Three-quarters of the country are now under the most draconian Tier 4 restrictions and under strict ‘stay at home’ orders.

Mr Johnson pleaded with the public to follow the rules over New Year and signalled that yesterday’s approval of the ‘game-changer’ Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could bring and end to lockdowns by Spring.

‘We are still in the tunnel of this pandemic, the light however is not merely visible… the tunnel has been shortened, we’re moving faster through it and that gives me great confidence about the future in the Spring,’ he said. 

Yet as the UK suffered its deadliest day since April with 981 Covid-19 deaths, the PM said he ‘bitterly regretted’ having to impose such harsh measures.

Mr Johnson stressed that education remained a ‘national priority’, but Labour and teacher unions lined up to blast the ‘chaotic 11th-hour announcement’ which will see millions of students out of classrooms at the start of the New Year.   

Mr Williamson has faced massive pressure in recent weeks over the proposed staggered restart of secondary schools and colleges in the New Year as teachers, unions and scientists all called for a delay. 

However, the decision to keep primary schools in hotspot areas closed went further than many people were expecting. 

The Education Secretary told MPs: ‘We will be opening the majority of primary schools as planned on Monday January 4. 

‘We know how vitally important it is for younger children to be in school for their education, wellbeing and wider development. 

‘In a small number of areas where the infection rates are highest we will implement our existing contingency framework such as only vulnerable children and children of critical workers will attend face-to-face. 

‘We will publish this list of areas today on the gov.uk website.’ 

The full list of the areas subject to primary school closures from January 4 was later published by the Department for Education. 

It includes 22 London boroughs, 11 boroughs in Essex and nine in Kent. 

Mr Williamson stressed the restrictions on primary schools are only being applied to the worst-hit infection hotspots and that the ‘overwhelming majority’ in England will open as planned. 

He also said areas which are subject to the restrictions on face-to-face primary teaching will be regularly reviewed in the hope that schools can reopen as soon as possible. 

On the issue of secondary schools and colleges, the Education Secretary said the coronavirus infection rate is ‘particularly high among this age group’ and as a result ‘we are going to allow more time so that every school and college is able to fully roll-out testing for all of its pupils and staff’. 

He said: ‘All pupils in exam years are to return during the week beginning January 11, with all secondary school and college students returning full time on January 18.

‘During the first week of term on or after January 4, secondary schools and colleges will prepare to test as many staff and students as possible and will only be open to vulnerable children and the children of key workers.’ 

Mr Williamson said he expected the ‘full return of all pupils in all year groups’ on January 18. 

However, speaking at a Downing Street press conference this evening, Mr Johnson suggested that date could be changed for some schools depending on infection rates. 

He said: ‘I want to stress that depending on the spread of the disease it may be necessary to take further action in their cases as well in the worst affected areas.’

The timing of the announcement of the schools rethink sparked a furious reaction from union leaders. 

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) said: ‘This is another last-minute mess which could so easily have been avoided if the Government had listened to school leaders before the holidays.

‘Instead, back then, schools which wanted to shift to remote learning were threatened with legal action. Now we have a situation where the Government is instructing schools to reduce the amount of teaching time available.

‘If we’d had the freedom to take action before the holidays, we might have been in a position to have more schools open for more pupils. School leaders will be baffled, frustrated and justifiably angry tonight.’

Jon Richards, head of education at the union Unison, said: ‘Everyone agrees it’s important for schools and colleges to open but it can’t be at any expense when infections are rising.

‘This delay for secondary schools is a sensible decision, giving more time to organise mass testing effectively to limit the spread. Primary and early years reopening should also be delayed because social distancing isn’t really possible.

‘Ministers should also ensure any moves to extend the vaccine priority list must cover all school staff and not just teachers.’

The Government’s initial plan was for exam year pupils to physically return to secondary schools and colleges from January 4 while the other students took part in online learning before then going back on January 11.