With sweltering temperatures set to hit the UK this week, the school summer holidays are fast approaching for families across the country. With very little “holidaying” likely to be allowed to take place, questions are rightly being asked about what can be done between now and September to salvage the school year.
By then, most students in England will have been away from school for six long, hot months, with only children of key workers having been allowed to attend throughout lockdown. For many students, this is six months of precious lost education that will severely set back their chances of achieving their potential. Four in 10 are not in regular contact with their teachers and just 2.5 hours per day on average is being spent on schoolwork. As the final weeks of the summer term draw in, there is still time to act to bridge the gap between now and the autumn, but the clock is ticking down fast.
At every stage, teaching union leaders who are looking increasingly out of step with the teachers they represent have sought to thwart the efforts of the government to get kids back in classrooms. Barely half of primaries opened to extra pupils (Years one and six) in the first week of June amidst a fierce union battle that saw 54 mostly Labour-run councils either directly telling schools not to open or leaving the decision up to individual headteachers. Frustratingly, this even included some councils in London where the infection rate had dropped dramatically after an earlier peak than elsewhere in the country.
Although most primary schools have now reopened to at least one of the planned age groups, only around a quarter of pupils from the years that should have gone back have actually been attending. Now the government has scrapped its aim to get all primary pupils back before the summer, we are faced with the stark reality that only around one in 10 primary age pupils have been into school at all since March and the rest are unlikely to go back at all now as the term draws to a close.
The picture is even worse for secondary students, with only two year groups having being told to return as of last week here too. A survey of headteachers by the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) found that more than a third were not on course to bring back all of their eligible Year 10 and 12 students, with some not planning to open at all. Discussions are underway about dropping certain modules and there are already growing calls from some GCSE teachers to scrap these exams next year too as their Year 10s are so woefully far behind.
Too much of the conversation about a grand re-opening in September assumes that the Covid-19 pandemic is a one-off event. The devastating reality is that if we wait until then to restart children’s educations only for the virus to return with a vengeance in the winter, then they may get just a few weeks or months back at school before closures resume. Even if Covid-19 itself isn’t running rampant again, the usual coughs and colds that spread like wildfire through schools (especially at the start of term) will likely need to be treated as Covid-19 until testing proves otherwise, with the accompanying quarantine periods further disrupting the school year. Then there will be the families frustrated by travel restrictions ruining their summer plans who decide to risk the fines and take their children abroad during term time once international travel restrictions are relaxed. All in all, the idea that September will be a resumption of normal service is unlikely to be the case.
While blanket school closures have protected our health through the peak, the economic costs are severe. Getting children back into the classroom is so vital to their welfare, health and aspirations, and so important to the economic recovery for getting parents back to work, that it cannot be made contingent on the virus disappearing as some teachers’ unions appear to favour.
There is also strong reason to believe that social distancing guidelines can be relaxed. Unions may be correct to point out that social distancing is impossible in primary schools given the age of the pupils, but it is in primary schools where the risk of transmission is the smallest. As the children’s commissioner for England highlighted, NHS nurseries that have remained open throughout the lockdown have not suffered outbreaks. Further evidence from Switzerland has crucially indicated that children are not just less likely to catch the virus, but also to transmit it.
Fortunately there are steps that can be taken now to at least get more of those eligible back to school before the summer, many of which can be delivered at speed by proactive local authorities rather than waiting for more central government guidance. First, councils must guarantee personal protective equipment for schools—prioritising getting facemasks, gloves, medical aprons and sanitising hand gel to staff as soon as possible. Second, for teachers who can’t walk or cycle to work, free parking permits should be offered so they can get there without using buses or trains. Third, where possible council buildings should be made available for extra classrooms, public green spaces made free for schools to use, and to avoid excess crowding at pick-up and drop-off time, traffic-free streets should be offered to any school that needs them. Where possible, this could go one step further, as it has in some US cities where temporary classrooms have been built on surrounding roads.
While free school meals over the summer have been confirmed, schools need guidance now on what funding they can use for summer schools and extra tutoring to help their most disadvantaged pupils get back on track for September. On Friday the Department for Education announced its £1bn Covid-19 catch-up package to tackle the impact of lost teaching time, but this is earmarked for the 2020/21 academic year, not the current one.
School may already be out for the summer for most students, but more can be done now to get those in critical school years or struggling to keep up at home back behind their desks before September. We can’t afford to fail our children by waiting for next year to act.
