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Secondary schools in England will be allowed to stagger students’ return to the classroom over two weeks from 8 March, the education secretary has said.
Despite guidance issued two days ago by his Department for Education stating that secondary schools would have “discretion on how to test students” over the first week back “to enable their return to the classroom”, Gavin Williamson told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “It’s not three tests in the first week. It’s three tests over the first two weeks.”
Challenged on the “eye-watering logistics” of administering tests to all secondary students in the week-long period reported over the past 48 hours, Williamson said: “There will be three Covid tests over a two-week period the first two weeks they return for secondary schools from 8 March.
“Schools are able to bring year groups in from 8 March depending on their capacity as to how they’re best able to do that,” he added. “They’ve got a week to bring all those pupils back, so they can be tested during that week.”
Timeline
How England’s Covid lockdown will be lifted
Step 1, part 1
All pupils and college students return fully.
People can meet one other person outside, not just for exercise. Care home residents can receive one regular, named visitor.
The “stay at home” order will otherwise stay in place.
Step 1, part 2
Outdoor gatherings allowed of up to six people, or two households if this is larger, not just in parks but also gardens.
Outdoor sport for children and adults will be allowed.
The official stay at home order will end, but people will be encouraged to stay local.
People will still be asked to work from home where possible, with no overseas travel allowed beyond the current small number of exceptions.
Step 2
The official outline plan states that the next steps will rely on data, and the dates given mean “no earlier than”. In step two, there will be a reopening of non-essential retail, hair and nail salons, and public buildings such as libraries and museums.
Most outdoor venues can open, including pubs and restaurants but only for outdoor tables and beer gardens. Customers will have to be seated but there will be no need to have a meal with alcohol.
Also reopening will be settings such as zoos and theme parks. However, social contact rules will apply here, so no indoor mixing between households and limits on outdoor mixing.
Indoor leisure facilities such as gyms and pools can also open but again people can only go alone or with their own household.
Reopening of holiday lets with no shared facilities, but only for one household.
Funerals can have up to 30 attendees, while weddings, receptions and wakes can have 15.
Step 3
Again with the caveat “no earlier than 17 May”, depending on data, vaccination levels and current transmission rates.
Step 3 entails that most mixing rules are lifted outdoors, with a limit of 30 people meeting in parks or gardens.
Indoor mixing will be allowed, up to six people or, if it is more people, two households.
Indoor venues such as the inside of pubs and restaurants, hotels and B&Bs, play centres, cinemas and group exercise classes will reopen. The new indoor and outdoor mixing limits will remain for pubs and other hospitality venues.
For sport, indoor venues can have up to 1,000 spectators or half capacity, whichever is lower; outdoors the limit will be 4,000 people or half capacity, whichever is lower. Very large outdoor seated venues, such as big football stadiums, where crowds can be spread out, will have a limit of 10,000 people, or a quarter full, whichever is fewer.
Weddings will be allowed a limit of 30 people, with other events such as christenings and barmitzvahs also permitted.
This will be the earliest date at which international holidays could resume, subject to a separate review.
Step 4
No earlier than 21 June, all legal limits will be removed on mixing, and the last sectors to remain closed, such as nightclubs, will reopen. Large events can take place.
Peter Walker Political correspondent
Williamson confirmed that all schools would open on 8 March. But, he added. “If schools think they have the capacity to get pupils through by 8 March of course they can have them all there. All primary schools will be coming back on 8 March as well.”
Williamson said schools and education settings had delivered more than 4.5m Covid tests already and 97% had “already stood up their testing regimes and testing stations”.
“We have already been doing a lot of work to get this ready,” he said. “But we do recognise this is a huge logistical task.”
Williamson added that “as soon as these three tests have been completed, then children will be getting their home-testing kits to do the tests on themselves once they’ve learned how to do it with supervision of adults during that first two-week period”.
He said the use of face masks by secondary students in classrooms would be reviewed at Easter to see if they have a “positive impact of whether they continue to be necessary”.
In an earlier interview on Sky News, Williamson did not rule out that a proposal of lengthening the school day was under consideration to help pupils catch up from the coronavirus disruption.
He said: “We’ll be looking at how we can boost and support children in a whole range of different manners. But it’s not just about time in school, it’s about supporting teachers in terms of the quality of teaching and how we can help them.”
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