Responding to the Government today announcing that the reopening
of secondary schools in England after Christmas will be staggered
and a large-scale coronavirus testing exercise undertaken, Cllr
, Chair of the
Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board,
said:
“Large-scale COVID-19 testing clearly has the
potential to help keep schools open, and staff and pupils out of
isolation. This is vital as we work towards our shared goal of
ensuring pupils don’t fall further behind in their
education.
“However, this is a hugely ambitious programme
to be completed in an extremely short timeframe when school staff
and leadership teams, who are already exhausted after what has
been a very challenging year, may be forced to work over the
Christmas break to help coordinate it.
“It is vital that the expertise of local public
health teams is used to help with the logistics and rollout of
the plan, while government needs to urgently publish guidance
that supports this announcement to provide clarity for schools,
address questions which currently remain unanswered, and takes
account of local needs and capacity
challenges.
“Schools have already incurred considerable
additional costs due to COVID-19, so while it is good the
Government’s announcement promises that reasonable workforce
costs will be reimbursed, this should be widened and backdated to
cover staffing costs including supply teachers which is one of
the biggest costs for schools.”
