The government has today reissued a legal order to schools requiring them to provide immediate access to remote education for pupils who need to self-isolate due to Covid-19.

The Department for Education announced that its remote education direction was in place from today, as it launched a “Let’s get back to school and college” campaign.

It said its direction gives “legal force to the requirement for schools to offer immediate access to high-quality remote education where students need to self-isolate”.

But school leaders reacted to the announcement by stressing that schools have already been doing this through the challenging times of the Covid crisis.

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Nick Brook, deputy general secretary of the NAHT school leaders’ union, said: “This is completely unnecessary and unhelpful. Schools have done an incredible job over the last 18 months to develop a remote learning offer from scratch, and throughout the pandemic they have had to balance this with providing face-to-face education as usual.

Covid: Legal duty on schools to provide high-quality remote learning

“There is no evidence that the government even used the last continuity order last year and we have no doubt it will serve little purpose again this year.

“The government would do far better to spend its time focusing on how it can support teachers and schools who could be asked to once again balance in-person and remote education this term.”

Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We note the reference to the reissuing of a remote education direction giving legal force to the requirement for schools to offer high-quality remote education where students need to self-isolate, and would point out to the government that schools have already been doing this extremely successfully over the course of the pandemic and often in very difficult circumstances.”

In October last year, the DfE used temporary continuity direction powers to place an obligation on schools to provide immediate access to remote education for pupils if they are absent because of Covid-19.

At the time a school leaders’ union described this move as “a grave error” that sent the message that the government did not trust school leaders or teachers.

Speaking last year, NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said: “There is absolutely no reason to believe that emergency powers are required to compel schools to act.

“By reaching for legal powers, government risks sending an unequivocal message to the profession and parents that they do not trust school leaders to act in the interests of young people in this country.”

Schools may see fewer pupils self-isolating this term following a rule change.

During the past academic year, all pupils who were identified as contacts of a Covid case were asked to self-isolate.

But this year, contacts will instead be asked to take a PCR test and will only have to isolate if they test positive for Covid.