A teaching union leader has called for “Nightingale classes” to be created to allow for smaller classes, rather than pupil rotas, to help schools stay open as Covid-19 spreads.
NEU teaching union joint general secretary Kevin Courtney wants the government to show the same ambition in increasing classroom space that it did when the Nightingale hospitals were created.
He said the union was worried that in areas with high transmission rates of the virus, such as Bolton and Newcastle, schools could be about to move to running on a rota basis.
Mr Courtney said that creating smaller classes would keep more pupils in school and reduce the numbers in “bubble groups’ who would need to be sent home in the event of a positive case.
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Mr Courtney’s warning came the day after government figures revealed that the number of secondary schools in England at least partially closed because of the coronavirus had doubled in a week to more than 500.
Coronavirus: Smaller classes ‘can help keep schools open’
Mr Courtney said: “We have got Nightingale courts to deal with the backlog in the courts. We think we need Nightingale classes, too.
“Some people tell us this is over-ambitious but in Bolton and in Newcastle we are worried that they are going to move to a rota operation, and we think that reducing class sizes in those areas is a better option.
“It will take real work but there are supply staff, there are NQTs who qualified last summer who don’t have jobs, and this is could be work that they could sensibly do.
“It would not be ‘situation as normal’ but it would be a way of keeping more children in school by reducing transmission networks, and instead of sending home whole year groups and whole bubbles, if we have smaller classes there are ways of reducing the number of children sent home.”
The government has created a four-tier plan for keeping schools partly open in areas where Covid-19 keeps rising.
Schools and colleges could be asked to operate on a two-week rota or to stay open only for vulnerable children and those of critical workers as part of contingency plans for coping with spikes in the virus.
But, at a press conference today, Mr Courtney said the NEU would prefer it if the government reduced class sizes to keep pupils in education as part of the effort to combat Covid-19.
He said that other countries have mobilised to find extra teaching spaces. Asked if he would support the army being used to create the additional space, he said the union would not be opposed to schools getting support from outside agencies.
