The vast majority of teachers are feeling uneasy about more children returning to classrooms next month as the coronavirus crisis rumbles on.
A poll by teachers’ union NASUWT suggests 5% of nearly 30,000 members think it will be safe to re-open schools from June 1. The Government plans to send reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils back to school in England to begin with.
According to the survey, 95% of teachers were anxious about students returning and 93% thought the Government’s proposals were confusing. Meanwhile 91% didn’t feel confident about measures to safeguard health in the classroom.
In a letter to the Cabinet minister, general secretary Patrick Roach said the NASUWT remains ‘unconvinced’ that the wider reopening of schools is ‘appropriate or practicable’. The union found around nine in 10 teachers believe social distancing will be impossible, or will present major issues.
It also found that 87% of teachers believe that PPE is essential to protect staff against the virus. Dr Roach said: ‘The results of our survey underscore the fact that the Government has thus far failed to win the trust and confidence of teachers about the safety of reopening schools. It is now imperative that the Government takes every available opportunity to provide the necessary assurances that teachers are seeking.’
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The union leader called for all the scientific evidence from the Government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to be made available to teachers and school as soon as possible. Ministers are under pressure to change their plans as Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire joined a number of local authorities in advising its schools against reopening more widely from June.
Solihull Council, believed to be one of the first Conservative-led local authorities to question the Government’s proposed start date, has warned that some school places may not be ready for the first week of June.
It came as education unions said they were due to meet Education Secretary Gavin Williamson today as part of a weekly conference on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools.
Last week National Education Union (NEU) joint general secretary Mary Bousted told teachers not to attend any planning meetings about schools reopening from June 1.
She said the current timetable is ‘reckless’, ‘not safe’ and ‘not feasible’. Calderdale Council became the latest Labour-led local authority in the north of England to advise its schools against reopening next month, following similar actions from Bury, Liverpool and Hartlepool.
Sefton Council in Merseyside will suggest classrooms reopen from June 15 to allow time for an appropriate risk assessment’. Currently only children of key workers and vulnerable pupils are going into school.
A number of local authorities in England have acknowledged safety concerns among parents and teachers over the date, but they have not urged all their schools to reject the proposed time frame.
Leaders of Birmingham City Council have sent a letter to parents and school staff saying that they will only support schools opening to more pupils ‘when it is safe to do so’.
The statement says: ‘We recognise that for some schools, opening to more pupils safely may not be possible on June 1, while parents and guardians must also feel reassured.
‘We trust that head teachers will make the right decisions for their school communities.’
Headteacher at Birmingham’s Colebourne Primary School, Stuart Guest, has told parents he does not plan to open more widely on June 1 because ‘the risks are too great’.
In a letter to families, he said: ‘We would still be endangering the lives of my staff and the community we serve if we rushed a wider opening.’
Professor of infectious disease modelling at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine John Edmunds said the move to reopen primary schools is a political decision. But he said it may be that children are less likely to transmit Covid-19 to others.
Speaking to the House of Lords science and technology committee, he said: ‘The risk to others may be relatively low, but overall you have to weigh up those risks with other things, risks to community, clearly we can’t keep children off school forever, and so on and so forth. The actual decision, and weighing all of those things, needs to be done by politicians.’
Yesterday, former Labour prime minister Tony Blair said Boris Johnson’s administration was right to start reopening schools as he said some children will have received ‘no education at all’ during the lockdown.
A Department for Education spokeswoman said: ‘We want children back in schools as soon as possible because being with their teachers and friends is so important for their education and their wellbeing.
‘Plans for a cautious, phased return of some year groups from June 1, at the earliest, are based on the best scientific and medical advice. The welfare of children and staff has been at the heart of all decision making.
‘We have engaged closely with a range of relevant organisations, including the unions, throughout the past eight weeks, including organising for them to hear directly from the Government’s scientific advisers last Friday, and will continue to do so.’
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