There’s a moment in Moonraker – the book not the
film – when a lover says to Bond: “I’m in the Special Branch”.
Then a bomb goes off. When his consciousness returns, Bond finds
himself saying to himself: “the Special Branch. What was it she
had said about the Special Branch?”
We have a way of trying to cling to normality when the abnormal
happens. The point applies to real pandemics as well as fictional
explosions. And to the tos and fros of education in Britain as
well as the thrills and spills of Bond’s sex life.
Many of us can’t help thinking that the pre-Coronavirus world
will return soon. Of which a part will be children going to
school as normal. But this may not happen – especially if
Government policy insists on trying to minimise Covid-19, for
better or worse, and fear of it continues to haunt the public.
In which case, what’s happening in schools now will carry on
happening until or unless a vaccine becomes available, or herd
immunity is achieved, or the disease is proved to have become
less fatal, or mass testing works as effectively in Britain as it
has in parts of the Far East.
And what’s happening is roughly as follows: most schools have
re-opened. But some are reacting to the prospect of Coronavirus,
real or imagined, in the following ways. A pupil falls ill. He or
she is discovered to have the virus. The school then demands that
all pupils are tested, whether they’ve been in contact with that
student or not.
No tests are available. That has knock-on effects on the
willingness of parents to send their children to school,
regardless of the fact that Covid-19 is not usually a danger to
the very young. They also rush to try and have those children
tested, thus putting further strain on a system that already
isn’t coping.
But it’s not just pupils who may stay away from schools. It’s
also teachers – to whom Covid, after all, is more of a threat,
since they’re adults. Or else, to pick another example of what
can happen, a teacher rather than a pupil gets the virus.
Other teachers in the schools want to get tests, and can’t. They
then stay away, or do so anyway. And have to self-isolate in any
event if they have been in close contact with the teacher
concerned. Then see above: the school then wants all pupils
tested. Some parents stop sending their children to the school.
The consquence is that education as usual becomes impossible for
those who do turn up, because the school has been compelled to
merge groups and classes. So there is now talk of rotas, which
are inevitable in the absence of more teachers or more premises
or both, at least if the availability of testing stays as it is.
Even if it improves, children will be at the back of the queue.
That’s as it should be, but it will do nothing to improve the
likelihood of parents sending them to school. Ministers are
floating pushing teachers up the testing queue to just behind NHS
and care home workers.
But prioritising teachers for tests will be of little use if
these are not quickly available. Meanwhile, those pupils sent
home, or kept away by their parents, can’t look after themselves
if they’re under secondary school age. And childcare often won’t
be available.
So parents will have to stay at home instead. Which will slow
economic recovery, if not reverse it. Which threatens to bust the
Government’s new plan of trying to keep workplaces open while
severely resticting leisure – hence the six-person rule, curfews
and marshalls.
Stand back for a moment, and ponder this unravelling tapestry.
Some of its features aren’t the Government’s fault. They are the
consequence of people acting unreasonably, or at least taking
action that may do no harm to them but will to others. Get the
precautionary principle out of all proportion and the result is
stasis.
None the less, there has been an institutional failure of
imagination in Downing Street. Life does not always return to
normal. Vaccines don’t invariably turn up on time, as Robert
Sutton pointed out on this site earlier this week. It’s no use
shooting for the moon if you don’t keep your feet on the ground.
Schools have not been at the top of Boris Johnson’s in-tray
during Coronavirus. That’s partly because the health service
originally had to be, partly because of the wider debate about
lives and livelihoods…and partly because they have less of a grip
on voters’ imagination than hospitals.
The NHS is Britain’s national religion, not better schools. That
helps to shape politicians’ priorities, Whitehall’s, the media’s
– and the Prime Minister’s. We are collectively underfocused on
the life chances of the next generation. Last spring’s lockdown
has already done these inestimable damage.
As our columnist never tires of pointing out, it is being felt
especially among the disadvantaged: the very reverse of
levelling-up is taking place. It doesn’t help to have an
Education Secretary in place who has been damaged by the results
fiasco.
ConservativeHome believes that, even if death rates rise, the
Government should be opening up the economy – and letting testing
and tracking take the strain. If it can’t, then the need for a
Plan B for schools is urgent. That has to mean a mix of teaching
in schools and online.
That would require a guarantee of online provision, backed up by
inspections, and computers for children whose parents can’t
afford them. Some private schools are already streaming lessons
from classrooms into homes. Expectations for the state sector
should be just as high. Bond may only live twice, but we’re only
schooled once.
