Labour responds to reports that a third of schools had more than 10% of their staff absent due to Covid on first day of term

Bridget Phillipson MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, responding to NAHT’s poll showing a third of schools had more than 10% of their staff absent due to Covid on the first day of term, said:

“These stark figures reveal the extent of the government’s failure to plan for school staff absences this term. The government has no plan to prevent nor to manage thousands of staff being off school due to Covid.

“Ventilation, vaccination and testing are key to keeping schools running but the government’s chaotic, mismanagement means tests aren’t available, only half of eligible pupils have been vaccinated, and children are being left to learn in coats next to open windows as temperatures plummet.

“Again and again our children have been treated as an afterthought by Conservative Ministers, seemingly unable to act until it’s too late. It is incompetent, complacent, and inadequate.”