Commenting on today’s announcement by the Secretary of State for
Education, , Dr Mary
Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National Education Union
said:
“We are astonished at today’s announcement by .
With warnings from eminent scientists of an ‘imminent
catastrophe’ unless the whole of the UK is locked down, and with
more cases in hospitals than ever before and our NHS facing an
enormous crisis the Secretary of State is sending the majority of
primary pupils and staff back on Monday to working environments
which aren’t COVID secure.
The Government has not, despite being repeatedly asked, published
the scientific guidance on the risks involved in school and
college reopening. This information is desperately needed -
particularly as the new variants of the virus are 50% more
transmissible.
The Government in Scotland will not reopen schools till 18
January at the earliest. The Government in Westminster should
have done that at least.
A longer period of online working for all primary, secondary and
college students could suppress virus levels and buy time both
for the roll out of the vaccine and to put in place measures that
can keep schools safer.
Uniquely school and college staff are being required to work in
overcrowded buildings, with no effective social distancing, no
PPE and inadequate ventilation.
We would like to explain,
if schools are not centres of transmission why school age pupils
are now the most infected age groups?
Why is it that Primary age children are the second highest
infected of all age groups, or that levels of infection amongst
Secondary pupils have multiplied by 75 times since the start of
September?
Serious questions also have to be asked about the Government’s
plans for lateral flow testing in secondary schools, in
particular about the effectiveness of these tests in identifying
COVID infection in young people who are highly likely to be
asymptomatic, with the tests being supervised by non medically
trained volunteers. We do not think it likely that these tests
alone can make our schools Covid secure nor protect the
communities they serve.
We believe the Governments steps will fail, that cases will
continue to rise and that the question of school opening will
have to be re-visited but in a worse situation than now. We again
call on the Government to engage with us and with the suggestions
we have made.
We do not believe, as they are currently organised that schools
are safe enough places for education staff to work. We demand the
following:
- A review of all risk assessments in the light of the much
higher transmission of the new variant.
- Social distancing of 1 metre between pupils in all schools
and colleges to replace the current practice of cohort distancing
which allows whole year groups to mix without any social
distancing.
- Masks to be worn by pupils and staff in secondary school
classrooms and colleges
- School staff to be made a top priority for vaccination -
along with health care staff and starting with the most
vulnerable.
- Until vaccinated, Clinically Extremely Vulnerable staff and
other high risk groups to work from home, supporting children who
are at home.
We reiterate that even with these steps we are concerned that
cases will continue to rise making the spread of the virus in our
communities more dangerous. We repeat our call on the Government
to release its scientific advice and modelling”.
