Secondary school leaders will want to consider using face masks and keeping social distancing where possible when students return to the classroom next term, the country’s biggest education union has said.
And leaders should also think about putting in place “special arrangements for vulnerable staff” to help protect them against Covid as the new academic year gets underway, according to the NEU teaching union.
Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the NEU, has described the Department for Education’s “Back to school and college” campaign, launched today, as a “charm offensive”.
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Education secretary Gavin Williamson said the start of the autumn term will mark “the point when our focus can shift away from the disruption of Covid and on to learning, enrichment and recovery”.
Fears Covid cases will rise when schools return
“I have every confidence that school and college staff, parents and students will continue to work together admirably, following pragmatic measures like testing and vaccinations to minimise disruption and keep children where they belong - in the classroom,” he added.
But Mr Courtney warned that the government’s recent drive to install carbon-dioxide monitors in all schools “should be sufficient evidence that Gavin Williamson made a bad call when removing so many mitigations last term”.
“We all want the return to school to be successful and the DfE emphasis on testing is important,” he said.
“This charm offensive from government to parents relies on the notion that the removal of safety requirements will magically transform school and college life.”
He added: “Sadly, CO2 monitors will not arrive soon enough, and only diagnose problems, not solve them.”
Mr Courtney said neither the Covid vaccination programme nor the government’s back-to-school testing plan will be enough to eradicate the challenges facing schools in the new term.
“The school community, including parents, students and staff, constitutes millions of people and we must expect cases to start to rise when schools return, especially when mitigations have been removed,” he said.
He added that leaders “will want to consider continuing with face coverings in secondary schools, social distancing where possible, and special arrangements for vulnerable staff”.
Mr Courtney said the government’s contingency framework “sets a very high threshold for the numbers of cases sufficient to trigger extended safety measures”, and the department “should be working with school and college leaders to do all that they reasonably can at the start of term to avoid reaching that point”.
“Every school and college is different, but the goal this September is common to all: none of us wants to see young people stuck at home,” he said.
“We believe they must be engaged in full on-site education and leaders and teachers and support staff will do everything they reasonably can to make sure that remains the case.
“That is our side of the bargain. But the DfE needs to do far more to uphold its end. As an absolute minimum, we need to see a swift roll-out of the promised CO2 monitors and proper support and action from government when problems are subsequently identified.
“School and college leaders are tasked with a great responsibility as they return from the summer break. Teachers and support staff feel this, too. The danger is not that schools and colleges will be slow to act, but that government is.”
The NAHT school leaders’ union also said it would be “naïve to assume that things will be completely back to normal in September”.
Nick Brook, deputy general secretary, said: “The government needs to do much more than issue warm words and hope for the best - it must do everything in its power to ensure that schools are kept as safe as possible so that as few children as possible miss out on education this year.”
