This government is failing our children during the pandemic

We all want as many children as possible returning to school when it is safe to do so. That starts with more support for learning over the summer and, taking a lead from the Welsh Labour government, funding free school meals. The dedication that all school staff, caretakers, teachers, teaching assistants, cleaners, cooks, governors have shown for the safety, education, wellbeing and health of pupils and school communities throughout this crisis has been extraordinary.

Criticism of teaching staff and their union representatives has been misplaced and totally unfair. Schools have the wellbeing and safety of their pupils and staff at their very heart. Local views on the opening of schools need to be respected. As we are discovering, more deprived areas in the North are being hit with high rates of Covid deaths, higher death rates from all causes and particularly those suffering from greater increases in unemployment. The issue is complex. Ultimately the safety of all in school and the school community, and the educational needs of our children, must be the focus of government policy – this government has failed on both.

In Liverpool, the elected city mayor chose in mid-April not to open schools on June 1st as a safeguarding issue. This wonderful city was, and still is, reeling from a high rate of infection. While the local press were supportive, governmental and media pressure to reverse the decision was intense. Questions were being asked as to why mayor Joe Anderson took this stance when schools in Denmark, for instance, were opening. Country-by-country comparison is far too simplistic. Joe has never said Liverpool can’t open its schools: he has said ‘when it’s safe to do so’ and only then. Each local area has its own characteristics, not only in terms of infection rates of this dreadful pandemic, but the physical nature and age of its school buildings, levels of deprivation, staffing, the amount of public funding available or not available, the differing needs of its pupils. And we now know that the test, trace and isolate system in the UK is not expected to work at full speed until September.

The Welsh Labour government has set out five principles to determine how and when children will begin to attend schools and will look at having more pupils and staff in schools only when it is safe to do so. In mid-May, Calderdale Council chose not to open its schools for more children until it was clear that pupils and staff can be protected and the risks of increased transmission of the virus in the community can be kept as low as possible. This is a local educational, health and societal issue.

Now the government has announced that schools in England will not have to take more pupils before the end of the summer term, but will work to get children of all ages back to class by September as the target set in its coronavirus roadmap will not be met. With just half of schools open to reception, Year One and Year Six, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson finally admitted that the full opening of primary schools this term would not be possible as social distancing is too difficult.

School staff and governors have been subjected to immense pressure. For months, schools, parents, unions and local leaders have been warning that government plans to open whole schools before the summer could put at risk any safety measures a school had been able to implement with reduced pupil numbers. The lack of leadership from this government has been appalling and the resources that will be made available to support home learning, especially for our most vulnerable families, is still unclear. Trade union GMB has rightly said it is “pleased” that safety has “started to lead government policy and decisions”. Why so late, and why has this government not had a joined-up strategy for the education of our children?

We are worried about our most vulnerable, where home-schooling in a cramped flat with no outdoor space is stretching our children’s educational, physical and mental wellbeing. Politically driven and hitting our worst pandemic-hit communities the hardest, another real scandal of government is that the promised ‘recovery’ government funding in Merseyside, for instance, has been cut in Knowsley by 39% and in Liverpool by 32%. Our health and education services – starved of resources in this politically bankrupt and false economy of austerity, especially in our poorest communities – need to be funded properly based on demographic need.

Is it safe to open our schools? There will always be risk, which means the question is how to reduce it. We must now learn from others – transmission from children to adults, children returning to schools in Italy presenting with multi-system inflammatory syndrome weeks after exposure. We need information and monitoring at a local level, the number of new cases locally and rates of transmission, effective and accurate testing, tracing and isolation. Local data should be driving policy. Assuming a date for the entire country was driven by ideology rather than need.

The government must:

• Provide high-quality technological and home-schooling support for families urgently until schools open fully.
• Recognise that schools and local authorities have been doing a fantastic job, and now resource and pay them properly, ending term-time only contracts for support staff and funding summer school meals, precedent or not.
• Prioritise safety, educational need and the wellbeing of pupils, staff and local communities over an arbitrary date.
• Listen to our school communities, our unions and our local and devolved governments.

It is clear that the government’s handling of this crisis in schools has not respected local decision-making. It has not put health first, and the inaction will increase challenges and inequality for our poorest pupils. If elected to Labour’s national executive committee, we are clear that we want to support our leadership team, education spokesperson and devolved governments to tackle these issues head-on.