The imminent return to school of many teachers in Scotland has prompted concerns that this contravenes public health priorities, MSPs heard today.

The Scottish Parliament’s Educational and Skills Committee also took evidence today on the impact of the coronavirus lockdown on the attainment gap and the back-up plans for cancelled exams.

While the vast majority of pupils in Scotland will not be back until August, school staff have, in theory, been able to return to school since Monday.

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EIS union general secretary Larry Flanagan said: “Some local authorities are instructing all staff to be in school from Monday.” This was despite “very, very clear guidance that staff should be back in small groups” and that “public health remains the overriding concern”.

He said the union was “rapidly heading towards disputes” with some councils.

Mr Flanagan also said that EIS union’s current advice to members is that if you wish to wear a face-covering, you should be allowed to, but it should not be compulsory. “I think we need to be fairly flexible around issues like face coverings,” he said, adding that if pupils want to ear face coverings, “I think we would probably be OK with that.”

Coronavirus: The impact on schools

Mr Flanagan also said that the unprecedented demands on the education system, such as the need for “blended learning” and physical distancing for the foreseeable future, should not lead to a return to more “didactic teaching”.

There was a similar response from Jim Thewliss - general secretary of School Leaders Scotland and, like Mr Flanagan, a member of the national Covid-19 Education Recovery Group - when he was asked about the prospect of an “emergency curriculum”, involving a more homogeneous approach in schools throughout the country. He said: “We’re not going to go anywhere near that.”

Mr Flanagan has been encouraged by the collaborative approach to learning during lockdown, with class teachers having a big say in how home learning is delivered.

But he said: “We can’t face the demands of next year without more funding for staff and resources.” He predicted “the biggest curriculum challenge of the century”, and said: “If we thought Curriculum for Excellence was hard, wait for 11 August.”

Mr Flanagan said discussions in the Covid-19 Education Recovery Group were exploring a “recovery curriculum” from August to October, with focus on “re-engagement of pupils”, nurture and “getting young people back into a learning mode”. The trauma of lockdown will be “significant” for some pupils, he added.

Similarly, Mr Thewliss predicted that the return to school after the summer will result in some children being described as “disadvantaged” who would not have fallen into that category before.

“There are still tens of thousands of pupils who don’t have a table to work at,” said Mr Flanagan, stressing that inequity of home learning is not just about computers. If children are in school for less than half of each week, it will have the biggest impact on pupils who are disadvantaged already.

However, he struck some upbeat notes on quailfications, despite the huge challenge of establishing an alternative approach to this year’s cancelled exams.

“I think this year’s qualifications will turn out OK,” said Mr Flanagan. Meanwhile, Mr Thewliss said teachers had done “absolutely superbly” since exams were cancelled, although he added that, at some point, the question of whether the exams system is suitable for the 21st century must be addressed.

Mr Flanagan said “we are in a good place with accreditation”, now that estimates for qualifications are in. But “there have been some challenges around [Scottish Qualifications Authority] communications”, and that SQA could have “embraced” the idea of teacher professional judgment “more positively”. 

If SQA statistical modelling throws up discrepancies in some students’ results, that should lead to dialogue with teachers to establish the best solution, said Mr Flanagan.

When asked about why details of the SQA’s modelling approach were not being revealed until students had their results, Mr Flanagan said that, if the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) can explain the R rate [the coronavirus infection rate] modelling, he was not sure why SQA could not explain its modelling for qualifications.

Meanwhile, guidance published today is designed to help teachers and councils prepare for the “blended model” of both classroom and home learning when schools reopen in August.

The guidance, produced by the Covid-19 Education Recovery Group, also details broad expectations for what Scotland’s curriculum will look like during this period in nurseries and schools. 

Also today, a researcher has called for next year’s exams to be cancelled. Barry Black, of the University of Glasgow, said in a research paper that the poverty-related attainment gap - the difference in educational performance between the richest and poorest pupils - will have widened since schools were forced to close.

He describes cancellation of next year’s exams as “sensible”, adding that the 2020-21 school year will be “like no other”.