Education unions representing the majority of school staff have made a joint call for the government to take “immediate and urgent action” to mitigate the risk of Covid spreading in schools this term.
The Association of School and College Leaders, the GMB workers’ union, the NAHT school leaders’ union, the NASUWT and NEU teaching unions and UNISON have tonight urged ministers to provide more support to schools to minimise disruption in the spring term.
The joint statement said that action was needed to avoid exams being cancelled for a third year in a row.
The unions warned that schools had been “left in the lurch” at the beginning of the year after secondaries were asked to run Covid testing sites with “little support from the government”.
The unions have made a series of recommendations to the government to mitigate the spread of Covid in schools this year.
The joint statement calls for the government to provide and pay for air cleaning units for every school after the government announced it was providing them for special educational needs schools and alternative provision settings.
The unions described the Department for Education’s decision to signpost all other schools and colleges to purchase this equipment from an “online marketplace” as being “simply not good enough”.
In December, heads expressed their “shock” over “expensive air purifiers” after the DfE launched a marketplace for schools to buy air purifiers to mitigate the spread of Covid.
Today’s statement also raises concerns about the government’s stance on face coverings in schools in England, saying: “We also question why the Westminster government takes such a different line on face coverings in secondary schools to Scotland and Wales when they use the same evidence.”
At the end of the last term, the government recommended that masks be worn in communal areas of schools by staff, visitors and students in Year 7 and above.
But in both Wales and Scotland, staff and pupils are also being told to wear them in the classroom.
Schools ‘left in the lurch’ with testing
In addition, the statement calls for a commitment to providing schools with more resources in the event that more on-site Covid testing is again required.
The unions raised concerns that “secondary schools have once again been left in the lurch” in being asked to set up and staff testing stations this month with “little support”.
Tes revealed last year that secondary schools had been asked to prepare to run on-site testing in January as pupils and staff return.
The unions have also called for the DfE to provide more and improved financial support for the costs of supply staff to cover for Covid-related absence.
A government scheme to recruit ex-teachers to reduce disruption caused by teacher absence through Covid was launched at the end of last year. However, the scheme has been criticised, with many heads warning that budgets will not cover the costs of supply.
After a freedom of information (FOI) request by Tes revealed that only four per cent of schools applied to the workforce fund last year, ASCL called for the DfE to widen the “strict” workforce fund criteria.
Today’s statement said that “the current government scheme contains so many complex conditions that it is inaccessible in many circumstances”.
Calls for ‘unhelpful’ Ofsted inspections to be deferred
The unions have also asked for the DfE to make it clear that all schools or colleges due for an Ofsted inspection this term can request that the inspection is deferred, and that their request will be automatically granted.
The statement claims that this would allow teachers and leaders to “focus on the immediate and urgent task in hand - that of supporting their pupils and students - and remove the unnecessary pressure and distraction of unhelpful inspections at this time”.
Last term, Ofsted inspections were deferred for the final week before the Christmas break to give schools time to consider contingency measures for coping with the Omicron variant in January.
But ASCL has been pushing for schools to be able to defer inspections on request because of Covid disruption, while the NAHT has said that routine inspections should be halted.
Teachers ‘desperately’ want face-to-face teaching to continue
The unions said that face-to-face teaching for all children and young people on a “consistent basis” and “without further interruption” was essential, particularly in supporting “disadvantaged and vulnerable children and young people who have often been most badly affected by the pandemic both educationally and in terms of their wellbeing”.
The joint statement said that teachers, leaders and support staff “desperately want to be able to conduct face-to-face teaching for all children and young people on a consistent basis and without further interruption caused by the pandemic” and that they had “moved heaven and earth to support pupils and students throughout the course of the crisis”.
However, the unions highlighted that “last term, education staff were more likely than other workers to test positive and therefore to have to self-isolate, inevitably leading to disruption of education”.
According to ONS data published last month, educators were 37 per cent more likely to catch coronavirus than other workers.
The union’s joint statement said: “Schools and colleges cannot on their own reduce the threat posed by the virus and they need from the Westminster government more than rhetoric about the importance of education.”
The trade unions said they are also keen to minimise the amount of educational disruption next term in order to avoid a third year of exam cancellations and prevent “uncertainty and additional workload for students and teachers”.
The DfE has been approached for a comment.
