Commenting on the full return of schools and colleges on Monday,
Dr Mary Bousted, Joint General Secretary of the National
Education Union, said:
"Schools and colleges will welcome pupils and students back on
Monday 8th March. Teachers, leaders and support staff have done a
magnificent job simultaneously educating pupils remotely and in
school. At all times education professionals have done everything
they could to support and protect children and young people.
Leaders have had to cope with government incompetence on a huge
scale - from repeated versions of guidance to rescuing and
operating a track and trace system.
'Heads and teachers will be carefully planning the safest
possible return - seeking to minimise transmission through masks,
testing, ventilation, bubbles and seeking to avoid as much mixing
as is possible in our overcrowded schools.
‘Secondary and post-16 leaders are struggling to obtain parental
consent for the testing of pupils – the cornerstone of the
Government’s plans for safe opening of secondary schools. Schools
are doing what they can to encourage take up - moving to an
opt-out system is impractical with a system where tests are taken
at home, so this really needs a bigger ministerial push and an
advertising effort. Ministers need to explain more about how
taking the test can keep communities safe. The logistics of mass
testing are already resulting in a de facto phased return in most
secondary schools and colleges. The Government should allow this
to continue beyond the period necessary for the tests to be
completed, in line with our call for a phased return until
Easter.’
'Children and young people will be returning to schools and
colleges in very different frames of mind. Some will be looking
forward to seeing their friends. Others will be very anxious and
nervous - particularly those who have not been able to engage
fully in remote learning. Education recovery plans must address
these differences and be understood to be a long term response to
the pandemic. Education recovery funding will be needed for years
to come.
'Students taking GCSE, A levels and vocational courses will face
an anxious return to in-school teaching and learning. Their
stress and anxiety about how they will be assessed and graded
should have been completely unnecessary and would not have
occurred if the Government had followed joint union advice and
prepared a plan B if exams could not be taken. has to take
responsibility for the foreseeable consequences of his inaction.
Repeated pledges that exams would take place, in the middle of a
pandemic, proved to be unachievable. Teachers, who now have 14
weeks in-school teaching with their exam classes, feel that they
are carrying the can for ministerial incompetence.
'We all hope that this is the last lockdown. But government has
not done enough to ensure this properly. Ministers had two months
to make schools and colleges safer but failed to put the
necessary measures in place to achieve this. Whilst everyone
hopes that things will go well, we are clear whose responsibility
it will be if they do not We will hold the Government to
account."
