Commenting on government plans for secondary schools in January,
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said:
“We recognise we are in a fast-moving situation, and that it is
imperative the government does everything possible to halt the
spiralling rates of Covid infection. And we are pleased it has
finally realised the importance of large-scale testing of staff
and pupils in our schools and colleges, and the introduction of
short periods of remote learning to reduce the spread of the
virus.
“But it beggars belief that this announcement is being made now,
right at the end of term, and after the government has spent the
last few weeks refusing to contemplate the idea of remote
learning and threatening schools with legal action if they dared
to suggest such a move.
“We are very concerned about the feasibility of setting up a
testing programme at the scale envisaged. We welcome the limited
support we understand will be available, but this is a huge
exercise requiring processes to be established and communicated,
parental permission to be obtained, and doubtless innumerable
other logistical issues to be overcome.
“We also want an assurance that school staff will not be expected
to carry out any invasive medical procedure.
“All this is aside from the fact that many school and college
leaders have not had a break since March and are presumably now
expected to spend their Christmas making sense of this
announcement, and arranging for priority groups to be taught in
school and other children to be taught remotely.
“The profession is very willing to work with the government over
how to roll-out mass testing, but ministers must understand that
chaotic, last-minute announcements do not constitute a
collaborative approach.”
