education

We should be talking about how British children will return to school, not when | Paul Whiteman

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We are at an absolutely pivotal moment in the very public debate about readmitting more children to schools in England.

You’ll note that I don’t say “reopening”. This is deliberate. Schools have remained open for vulnerable pupils and the children of key workers. And for those who have stayed at home, school staff transformed their entire working world from the tried and tested face-to-face method to an entirely new online offer for the vast majority of pupils.

This twin-track approach has been achieved overnight, demonstrating seemingly limitless reserves of ingenuity, cooperation and resolve from school staff. This is a huge achievement by itself, but it is even more impressive when you consider that around 25% of the workforce has been legitimately unavailable through illness, isolation or shielding.

Now, as we begin to consider readmitting all pupils into school, staff are applying their resolve to the question of how to provide vital education while safeguarding staff, students and families alike.

The discussions that we have had with the Department for Education have been business-like and open. That’s not to say it is getting everything right, but it really isn’t the case that we’re at loggerheads as some front-page headlines have suggested.

During this crisis, false perceptions have overtaken reality. The perception that schools are shut and staff are inactive is incorrect. The same goes for the perception that this is a battle between unions and the government. Some media outlets have not reported this fairly or accurately, adding to the fear, confusion and anxiety, which is already plentiful. Stoking divisions places an unnecessary obstacle in the way of the thing we all want most – to return our classrooms to the busy, happy environments of old as soon as possible.

Basic questions we’ve asked the government have been interpreted as nothing short of treason. Questions like, what is the scientific rationale for a 1 June return date? Are large groups of children all in one place likely to spread Covid-19 and cause a second spike? It is not unreasonable to expect the government to have these answers, and to share them.

Armed with this information, there is not a school leader in the land who would stand in the way of opening up more widely. Without such reassurances, leaders struggle with the ethical side of opening up, unsure of the risks and therefore unable to mitigate against them.

Friday’s publication of the Sage committee of scientific advisers’ advice was an important step in achieving greater transparency and confidence, but we still need the government to explain how it plans to pass its own five tests, which need to be met before schools can admit more pupils.

Confidence that any adjustments would not risk a second peak that would overwhelm the NHS is one of the qualifying measures. And at first reading, the Sage information offers little assurance on this issue because the evidence around the likely impact of a return to school is unclear. Furthermore, the separate Independent Sage group report says that new modelling shows the risk of infection would be halved if children returned to school two weeks later than ministers currently propose.

At today’s Downing Street press conference, the prime minister indicated that the five tests would be met. But we should step back from 1 June as a “go”/ “no-go” date. Two-thirds of primary schools are still operated by local authorities and many of them, particularly in areas where infection rates are still high, have said that they won’t advise their schools to open, or at the very least are suggesting some flexibility is needed.

The government has not won over the public either. In a Parentkind survey, 40% of parents did not wish to consider a timeframe until safety was assured, whether that was from government or school leaders.

The 1 June date has become toxic and counterproductive. The government has ended up in an unnecessary debate about “when”, when it should have had a much more open dialogue with organisations like ours about the “how”.

All along, the National Association of Head Teachers has advocated a phased approach to readmitting more pupils. Local flexibility is key: the physical limitations of buildings, both inside and out, plus staff availability and parents’ needs, and the daily rate of new cases in the area should inform how schools begin to readmit more pupils. We will be talking to our members about this in a webcast this week.

A school that chooses a gradual approach should not be thought of as failing to deliver, but rather as working as hard as it can to solve a difficult problem, with the needs of children and their families at the heart of their actions.

I hope we can now quickly change the debate from when to how we widen access to schools safely and practically. We need to, for the sake of the communities we serve, the children we care for and the national interest too.

Paul Whiteman is general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, which represents leaders in the majority of schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

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