Headteachers have warned that a “mismatch of expectation” over reopening plans due to a lack of clarity from the government could potentially “destroy the bond of trust” between schools and families.

Speaking to Tes this morning, the NAHT school leaders’ union set out a list of key questions it will be asking the Department for Education (DfE) at crisis back-to-school talks taking place today.

Tes understands that the DfE will be holding two key meetings involving the major teaching unions this afternoon.

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The first, at 1pm, will brief unions on the scientific basis for reopening schools, and will involve England’s chief medical officer Chris Whitty.

The second will take place at 4pm, and will focus on the policy implications of the scientific advice.

Paul Whiteman, NAHT general secretary, told Tes that the union is hoping to get three key things out of the meetings: an acknowledgement of the risk associated with reopening schools; a quantification of that risk; and strategies for mitigating that risk.

He warned that school leaders are being expected to make what could be “life-and-death decisions”, which they are “not trained to do” - and are currently lacking the relevant information and guidance from the government.

The questions that NAHT will put to the DfE at today’s crunch talks are as follows:

1. Acknowledgement

• Can the DfE acknowledge that there is a risk?

2. Quantification

• How much confidence is there that children don’t spread the disease to adults, even if they are asymptomatic?
• How does the disease transfer from child to child?
• Do children carry the disease in the same way that adults do?
• Has there been analysis of the scientific advice given that says the actions suggested in the government guidance are safe?

3. Mitigation

• Will schools be given the freedom to respond to the risk in a flexible way?
• Should PPE be used in schools?
• How should schools use social distancing?
• How can we make sure that “bubbles” of connection remain secure? What advice should schools give to parents?

Mr Whiteman stressed that this is not an exhaustive list of questions that will be asked today, and the NAHT will be driven by the three key areas set out above: acknowledgement, quantification and mitigation.

He added that the priority for school leaders “is and always has been and always will be the safety of the children in their care, the safety of their families and the safety of the wider school community - which obviously includes themselves and their staff”.

However, he said that currently, there “just isn’t sufficient information to give them the confidence…that what the government is asking is a safe direction of travel, because it compares so starkly to everything else that’s being said for other industries and other professions”.

Mr Whiteman also warned that, without an understanding of how flexible schools may be with their reopening plans, the government risks propagating a “mismatch of expectation” that could “destroy the bond of trust between schools and families”.

“I think one of the difficulties with this is the central government message has created a clear expectation - and I think it was on purpose; I don’t think this is an error - that all children in Years R, 1 and 6 will return to school from 1 June,” he said.

“Now, within that phrase…there are things that are unclear. Does from 1 June mean everybody on 1 June? Or do you mean schools are beginning to open their gates from 1 June?

“But until we can agree with government and understand from government what flexibilities can be legitimately used and are expected to be used to ensure safety, and then the government communicates that to parents so there isn’t a mismatch of expectation between what schools can provide and what parents expect, then we’re not going to find a way through this.

“One of the biggest problems here is the ability for this to be badly handled by government, and to destroy the bond of trust between schools and families.”

Mr Whiteman also expressed frustration over the new guidance for primary schools released by the DfE last night, which he said was “contradictory” to earlier advice.

“We had the initial advice some four days ago and schools had been planning and trying to assimilate that, and think about how they can achieve getting towards what the government’s asking,” he said.

“And it comes out again at 7 o’clock last night with a new set of advice that is contradictory to some of the earlier stuff, and cuts right across the planning that schools have made.

“A week of planning time has disappeared already. And schools were very clear that they need at least three weeks to prepare for any sort of return - from the point of advice, not the point of announcement. And that advice is still changing.”

Asked if anything could be said today that would persuade the NAHT that it would be possible to meet the government’s target of all primary pupils returning to school by the end of term, Mr Whiteman said: “We think that assertion was a huge mistake, we really do.

“It certainly outlines that whoever made that assertion, or whoever came up with that as an idea, doesn’t understand how schools work; their relationship with communities; and just actually how ill equipped some of the buildings are to maintain any sense of social distancing when you get those sorts of numbers coming through.

“So we don’t see that as practical, we don’t see how that can be achieved.”

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said today: “There are important scientific questions that need to be addressed, and we will listen to what the government’s scientists have to say.

“We want to hear what the science is. We want to know how much children transmit to one another and to adults. We also want to know what the risk is for society as a whole, and whether they now have contact tracing running well enough so that it can keep the case count low and hold it there.  

“It’s really important that we are absolutely clear what the level of safety is and if it remains the case that we believe it to be unsafe, we will not back the wider opening of schools.

“We want to get back to wider school opening as soon as it is safe to do. Most schools are open at the moment and have been open since lockdown began, for the benefit of children of key workers and the most vulnerable children in our society. Our members care deeply about the children they teach.”

Speaking on the BBC News channel this morning, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “We have to make sure we’ve got the reassuring answers to the questions that are not part of our gift. And I don’t think we will be able to ever say there are no risks attached to this.

“So ultimately, we will be making a judgement about the level of risk - part of which is…the risk of children not coming back to school. So there are no simple solutions.

“But with Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland doing something else, parents are already wondering why we would send our children back here - if they are going to be reassured, we are going to need the scientific basis for schools to open.”