The comments made by Dan Carden, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton, on 3 January 2021.
Education unions need our support. Unlike the Government, teachers are following the science. It’s time ministers started listening to the concerns of those who know best. Schools should remain closed to all but keyworker and vulnerable children until it is safe to reopen them.
The interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show with Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, on 3 January 2021.
ANDREW MARR:
I’m joined now live in the studio by the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson, welcome. Can I start with a very straightforward question? Should parents of primary school children in England send them to school tomorrow morning?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Yes, absolutely they should in the areas where schools are open. What we’re doing, clearly, is grappling with a new variant of the virus which is surging particularly in London and the south east, and that’s why we’ve had to take exceptional measures for some parts to close primary schools, keep primary schools closed temporarily. Not something anybody wants to do. We’ve really fought very hard throughout this pandemic across the country to keep schools open. There are lots of reasons for that. Schools are safe. Very, very important to stress that and that the threats, the risk to kids, to young people is really very, very, very small. Indeed, as the scientists continually attest, the risk to staff is very small. But of course the benefits of education are so huge, overwhelmingly we want to keep our young people, keep children in education because that’s the best thing for them. So that’s why we’ve worked so hard to do it. So I’d advise all parents thinking about what to do, look at where your area is: overwhelmingly you’ll be in a part of the country where primary schools tomorrow will be open.
ANDREW MARR:
The reason I ask is that SAGE told you on the 22nd December [2020] that we couldn’t keep on top of this new variant while keeping schools open.
BORIS JOHNSON:
Well, actually what they said was that we needed to take tougher measures. Sir Mark Walport, you just talked to, agreed and I agree with that.
ANDREW MARR:
How likely is it schools will be able to stay open, given where we are?
BORIS JOHNSON:
The issue, the evidence is not clear. Because we’re looking at Tier 4 and what happens in Tier 4 areas. We need to see whether those extra steps that we’ve all taken in Tier 4 areas are going to work in driving the virus down.
ANDREW MARR:
If they don’t work you may close primary schools?
BORIS JOHNSON:
I mean, Andrew, we’ve got to keep things under constant review. But we will be driven not by any political considerations, but entirely by the public health question.
ANDREW MARR:
The public health suggestion was that you will have to close schools to get on top of this new variant?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Well, there are different views, obviously, that are offered. It’s worth stressing that other public health experts also point to the long term damage to children and young people from being kept out of school, the social cost, the danger and threat to mental health, the many other factors that you have to remember, particularly deprivation for families in their communities. You’ve got to think very, very hard about the consequences for families of closing schools.
ANDREW MARR:
I absolutely understand that. So are you going to take legal action against a council like Brighton, for instance, which is just unilaterally closing its primary schools?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Well, we’ll work very hard with authorities across the country to get our message across, that we think schools are safe. Schools are safe, there’s absolutely no doubt.
ANDREW MARR:
Would you condemn them for closing the schools?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Look, I understand people’s frustrations, I understand people’s anxieties, but there is no doubt in my mind that schools are safe and that education is a priority. If you think about the history of the pandemic, we’ve kept schools going for a long, long time in areas where the pandemic has really been at very high levels. If you think about what they did in the north west – and yet – well, the evidence actually is that they were able to do that and to get the virus under control. So the question now is can we do that in these Tier 4 areas? Can we bring the virus under control and keep schools open? What I can tell you, Andrew, is that we’ll keep this under constant review but we’ll be driven by public health considerations and by the massive importance of education to children.
ANDREW MARR:
A lot of parents are very worried and very confused, partly because, for instance, in London, in Greenwich, your Education Secretary was threatening legal action to keep schools open, then three days later ordered them to be closed. When a council like Brighton says schools may close, Birmingham is saying much the same thing, in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham has said this is a decision that now must be taken by local authorities. There is a sense that up and down the country local authorities, and some schools, have given up on the government on this and have taken matters into their own hands.
BORIS JOHNSON:
I don’t think that’s the case, but obviously we’re going to work with local authorities, work with schools and those responsible up and down the country. Our advice remains the same, which is that for public health reasons we think, in the large majority of the country, large parts of the country, it is sensible to continue to keep schools open, primary schools. As you know, secondary schools come back a bit later.
The second thing is that we are going to be ramping up testing across the whole of the system. I don’t think people have focused enough on this, if I may just for a second, one of the things we didn’t have when we went into the first lockdown, where we sadly did have to close schools, was we didn’t have this huge number of lateral flow tests. We now have tens, hundreds of millions of lateral flow tests, which I believe and hope can be used, deployed, particularly in secondary schools to assist the return of schools. And it’s not that the return will be safe – the schools are safe – the issue is how can you stop schools being places where the virus can circulate and then spread into all the other households? Daily lateral flow testing, or weekly lateral flow testing in schools, I believe, can make a huge difference.
ANDREW MARR:
So let’s talk about right now. I ask you again, what is your message to those councils around England who are saying that schools can close and should close? What’s your message to them now?
BORIS JOHNSON:
My message to such councils is that they should be guided by the public health advice, which at the moment is that schools are safe in those areas where we’re not being driven by the new variant to close them, and that the priority has got to be children’s education. But obviously we want to work with them and we’re very humble in the face of the impact of this new variant of the virus. Let’s face it, we face a very, very difficult few weeks and months until the vaccine comes on stream.
ANDREW MARR:
I ask you whether you can guarantee that schools will open on 18th January. You can’t say ‘yes’ can you?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Well, obviously we’re going to continue to assess the impact of the Tier 4 measures, the Tier 3 measures. If you think about it, where we got to before Christmas if you remember was [interrupted]
ANDREW MARR:
I’m going to come to that.
BORIS JOHNSON:
was that the Tier 3 measures had actually been pretty effective in dealing with the old variant of the virus, and you were
seeing – you remember what had happened in the north west, there was real progress that had been made. Then we saw this very stubborn strain in this stubborn epidemic, in Kent and parts of London, and people were saying, ‘what’s all that about? Are they doing things differently? Are they failing to follow the guidance?’ And that wasn’t it.
ANDREW MARR:
We will get to that.
BORIS JOHNSON:
If you recall what happened, we became aware of this new variant. Since then – that’s why schools [interrupted]
ANDREW MARR:
If you can’t guarantee that schools are going to open later this month isn’t it now the right time to accept that GCSE and A Level exams are going to have to stop this year?
BORIS JOHNSON:
First of all, we think that in principle it’s a good thing to keep schools open if we can.
ANDREW MARR:
But in practise they may have to close and you may have to stop the exams.
BORIS JOHNSON:
We’ve got to be realistic. We’ve got to be realistic about the pace at which this new variant has spread and is spreading. We’ve got to be realistic about the impact that it’s having on our NHS, as you’ve heard all morning and we’ve got to be humble in the face of this virus. We have some things that are already working for us. We have a vaccine, two vaccines already, or three, that we’ll be able to use soon.
ANDREW MARR:
Three?
BORIS JOHNSON:
Well, we’ve got the Moderna coming.
ANDREW MARR:
Moderna. Okay.
BORIS JOHNSON:
So you know, we can see the way ahead, we can see what’s coming down the track in terms of a route forward for our country. We can see how we’re going to get out of this with great clarity now, we can see how the vaccines can really, really help us to beat this. But we do have a tough period ahead.
The comments made by Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, on 1 January 2021.
Children’s education and wellbeing remains a national priority. Moving further parts of London to remote education really is a last resort and a temporary solution.
As infection rates rise across the country, and particularly in London, we must make this move to protect our country and the NHS. We will continue keep the list of local authorities under review, and reopen classrooms as soon as we possibly can.
The comments made by Daisy Cooper, the Liberal Democrat MP for St. Albans on 1 January 2021.
U-turn after u-turn – can Williamson get anything right? This now also creates huge uncertainty for primary schools in #StAlbans… I didn’t get the Herts specific data I was promised, just a generic email with links that are already available. I’m chasing – again….
The comments made by Bill Esterson, the Labour MP for Sefton Central, on 1 January 2021.
The government has announced all London Primary Schools will stay shut. My constituents are asking whether schools here will be opening. If the government is going to u-turn on schools opening across the country they have to do so quickly. Stop the dither and delay.
The comments made by Jess Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, on 1 January 2021.
Please can the Government explain exactly how they are going to help the millions of parents (mostly women) how they will protect their jobs from this constant bloody chopping and changing. For parents of primary school kids work is becoming untenable.
The comments made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, on 1 January 2021.
The Government have finally seen sense and u-turned. All primary schools across London will be treated the same.
This is the right decision – and I want to thank education minister Nick Gibb for our constructive conversations over the past two days.
The comments made by Wes Streeting, the Shadow Minister for Schools, on 1 January 2021.
New year, same old story from Gavin Williamson and the Tories: dither and delay, creating added stress, chaos and confusion. Then an inevitable u-turn.
An avoidable mess if he’d listened: on school safety measures, mass testing and remote learning.
The statement made by Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, in the House of Commons on 30 December 2020.
With permission, I would like to make a statement regarding our plans for bringing children back to school this academic term.
Dealing with this pandemic has always been an exercise in managing risk. Throughout, we have been adamant that the education of children is an absolute priority and that keeping schools open is uppermost in all our plans.
The magnificent efforts of all the leaders, teachers and staff in all our schools and colleges have ensured that settings are as safe and covid secure as possible, but we must always act swiftly when circumstances change. The evidence about the new covid variant and rising infection rates has required some immediate adjustment to our plans for the new term. This is, of course, a rapidly shifting situation, but some things remain constant. We continue to act to preserve lives and safeguard the national health service, and we continue to protect education by putting children first. Above all, our response is proportionate to the risk at hand and makes every use of the contingency framework that we put in place earlier this year.
The latest study we have from Public Health England is that covid infections among children are triggered by changes in the community rate. The study also says that the wider impact of school closures on children’s development would be significant. I am quite clear that we must continue to do all we can to keep children in school. Taking all those factors into account means that we have had to make a number of changes for the new term in order to help break chains of transmission and to assist with keeping all our children and education settings as safe as we can. The fact that we have managed to do that so successfully throughout the entire pandemic is due to the incredible dedication of all our teachers, leaders and support staff, and I know that the House will join me once more in thanking them for everything that they continue to do to keep children learning as safely as possible.
Accordingly, we will be opening the majority of primary schools as planned on Monday 4 January. We know how vital it is for our younger children to be in school for their education, wellbeing and wider development. In a small number of areas where the infection rates are highest, we will implement our existing contingency framework such that only vulnerable children and children of critical workers will attend face-to-face. We will publish that list of areas today on the gov.uk website.
I would like to emphasise that this is being used only as a last resort. This is not all tier 4 areas and the overwhelming majority of primary schools will open as planned on Monday. The areas will also be reviewed regularly, so that schools can reopen at the very earliest moment. Ongoing testing for primary school staff will follow later in January and we will be working to establish an ambitious testing programme, helping to break chains of transmission and reducing the need for self-isolation where students and staff test negative for the virus.
We have already announced our intention for a staggered return to education this term for secondary age pupils and those in colleges. Because the covid infection rate is particularly high among this age group, we will allow more time so that every school and college is able to fully roll out testing for all its pupils and staff. I would like to thank school leaders and staff for all their ongoing work in preparing that. This kind of mass testing will help to protect not just children and young people; it will benefit everyone in the community. It will break the chains of transmission that are making infection rates shoot up. That, in turn, will make it safer for more children to physically return to school.
All pupils in exam years are to return during the week beginning 11 January, with all secondary school and college students returning full time on 18 January. During the first week of term after 4 January, secondary schools and colleges will prepare to test as many staff and students as possible, and will be open only to vulnerable children and the children of key workers.
The 1,500 military personnel committed to supporting schools and colleges will remain on task, providing virtual training and advice on establishing the testing process, with teams on standby to provide in-person support if schools require it. Testing will then begin in earnest the following week, with those who are in exam years at the head of the queue. This is in preparation for the full return of all pupils in all year groups on 18 January in most areas. To allow this focus on the establishment of testing throughout the first week of term, exam year groups will continue to have lessons remotely, in line with what they would receive in class, and only vulnerable children and the children of critical workers will have face-to-face teaching.
As with primary schools, we will apply our existing contingency framework for education in areas of the country with very high rates of covid infection or transmission of the virus. This will require secondary schools and colleges to offer face-to-face education only to exam years, vulnerable children and the children of critical workers, with remote education for all other students if they are in one of the contingency framework areas. We are also asking universities to reduce the number of students who return to campus at the start of January, prioritising students who require practical learning to gain their professional qualifications. All university students should be offered two rapids tests on return to reduce the chance of covid being spread.
To support remote education and online learning during this period, the Government expect to deliver more than 50,000 devices to schools throughout the country on 4 January alone, and more than 100,000 altogether during the first week of term. That is in addition to the 560,000 devices that have already been delivered, as we continue to aim for a target of distributing more than 1 million devices for the children who need them most. The programme is now being extended to include students aged 16 to 19 in colleges and schools.
So often, we have had to close things down to try to beat this awful disease, but with schools our best line of attack is to keep them open, using the mass-testing tools that we now have available to ensure that children are able to continue to gain the benefit of a world-class education. As we continue to hear more encouraging news about the vaccine roll-out, I am more determined than ever that children will not have to pay the price for beating covid. I have spoken many times of my determination that we cannot let covid damage the life chances of an entire year of children and students. With these plans, which allow for rapid testing and the controlled return of schools, I am confident that we can minimise the latest health risks posed by the virus. I commend this statement to the House.
The letter sent from Kate Green, the Shadow Secretary of State for Education, to Gavin Williamson, the Secretary of State for Education, on 1 January 2021.
Dear Gavin
I am deeply concerned that your statement to the House of Commons yesterday did not provide pupils, parents, or education staff with the clarity and certainty that they need as they plan for the reopening of schools and colleges in January, and I am writing to ask you to provide this clarity as a matter of urgency.
There has been a consensus across Parliament that keeping schools open to all pupils should be a national priority, but it appears that the government have simply lost control of the pandemic, and children are now paying the price in the closure of their schools and disruption to their education . Yesterday, I asked you to publish in full the advice the government has received in relation to the reopening of schools in January, and I ask you again to do so. Parents and school staff deserve to know that the government is taking all possible measures to keep children learning and keep children and staff safe. Are you confident that the measures you announced yesterday will be sufficient to reduce the spread of the virus?
Your statement came only a matter of days before the parents of pupils across the country, including all primary school pupils, expected their children to return to school, but now hundreds of thousands of children will see their school close, with no clear support in place for pupils or parents, and no clear path to their reopening.
Given the huge uncertainty and concerns facing families and hardworking education staff across the country, I hope that you will answer these questions urgently.
Testing programme
Schools will be relieved that they have been given extra time to put arrangements in place for mass testing of pupils, but there remain concerns about the support they will receive to do this. Will additional funding to recruit temporary staff be available to all schools, on what basis will it be allocated, and will schools be expected to meet any or all of the cost from their own budgets?
Is it the government’s intention that the testing programme will be introduced in special schools, and if so, what arrangements will be put in place to meet any additional support needs they may have, including the provision of PPE and staff resources.
Can you confirm whether it is the government’s intention to roll out testing in primary schools in due course?
Primary schools
In Parliament yesterday, you said that the overwhelming majority of primary schools would open on 4 January, but in London alone there are over half a million children in areas where primary schools will not be opening as planned. Your Department has admitted the original list published was incorrect so can you immediately confirm how many primary schools across England will not be opening as planned, and how many pupils are affected by this?
In your statement, you said that primary schools would not reopen in “a small number of areas, where the infection rates are highest[.]” But many local leaders have reported concerns that schools in areas with the highest levels of transmission will still open normally. Can you outline clearly and transparently the set of criteria used to determine when schools should not open?
We cannot reach a point where schools are closed indefinitely, and I welcome the fact that closures will be reviewed on 18 January. However, I am concerned that there is no clear process or criteria in place for allowing these schools to reopen. Will you publish, as a matter of urgency, the specific circumstances in which schools will reopen during the new term?
Can you provide clarity for schools with mixed primary and secondary intakes? Will primary pupils attend those schools, while secondary students will not return until 11 or 18 January?
Did you consult school leaders and local government leaders before deciding which areas should be subject to contingency measures?
Has your decision on contingency measures, particularly in London, considered the extent to which pupils will live in one local authority area but attend school in another?
Nurseries
Your statement said nothing on what will happen for nurseries in tier 4 contingency areas where primary schools are closing. Can you confirm all nurseries can remain open under the new restrictions?
Secondary schools
Teachers and school leaders simply do not understand the situation for secondary schools in the first weeks of January, entirely because of the lack of clarity in your statement. This must be clarified as a matter of urgency so that schools and families can prepare. Will you therefore provide urgent answers to the following questions:
During the week commencing 4 January, will it only be pupils in exam years who receive remote learning?
If this will not be the case, can you confirm that no school will be found to have violated laws implemented by your Department requiring schools to provide remote learning to all pupils who are not in school? Will you be clarifying the situation to school leaders?
During the week commencing 11 January, will all pupils who are not in school, meaning those not in exam years, receive remote learning?
It is my understanding that the next review point for the contingency measures is 18 January, the same date secondary schools are due to reopen. However, your Department’s press release suggests that areas with secondary schools subject to the contingency framework will be published at the next review point. Can you confirm when secondary schools will be told if they will not have to reopen to all pupils, and can you guarantee that that parents and school staff will have adequate time to prepare for this?
Support for families
Parents across the country have received only a matter of days to prepare for their children not to return to school at the beginning of January, creating huge challenges for those who need to balance work and supporting their children. Can you urgently outline the support that will be made available to families whose children are not able to return to school in January?
Can you set out in detail what reassurance is available to families with a clinically extremely vulnerable household member that their children can return to school safely.
It is my understanding that parents can be furloughed if they are unable to work due to childcare commitments, but this is not something that the government have made sufficiently clear to parents. Can you clarify if this is the case, and work with employers and unions to make this clear to the parents who are affected?
While I appreciate that you have committed to an expansion of digital access to learners who are out of school, I am concerned that schools will not receive devices they have ordered promptly, and that not all disadvantaged children will receive the support that they need. Can you set out a clear timeline for schools to receive the devices they are entitled to, and confirm the number of disadvantaged pupils who will be eligible?
Universities
Students are due to start returning to university from this weekend. While I understand that government guidance will now ask fewer students to return to campuses in the first weeks of January, given that a clear majority of the country is now under tier 4 ‘stay at home’ restrictions, will you consider pausing the return of students to prevent further spread of infection?
Plans for exams
In your statement you confirmed that BTEC and vocation and technical exams taking place in January will go ahead but you have not set out any plans to ensure these exams can go ahead safely and fairly. This support must be provided as a matter of urgency.
What further steps are you putting in place to ensure summer GCSE and A-level exams can go ahead safely and fairly? I understand you are establishing a working group to consider lost learning but this is worryingly delayed, so can you tell me when the group will meet and when exactly it will report?
We have now had weeks of chaos and uncertainty for pupils, parents, and schools, which has been a direct result of this government’s mishandling. You have once again waited until the last possible moment to act, causing unnecessary worry and inconvenience to the hundreds of thousands of people who are affected by these changes.
This is my third letter asking you to clarify as a matter of urgency the details around the start of the spring term, the support that schools and families will receive and how children’s learning and wellbeing will be protected. It’s extremely disappointing you have not yet responded to my previous letters, and your statement yesterday did not provide the answers needed.
Families across the country deserve far better. At a minimum they deserve clarity about how many schools are affected, how these decisions were made, and when schools will be able to open again. I hope that you will urgently provide this clarification.
I look forward to your swift response.
Yours sincerely
Kate Green MP