We need a plan to manage Covid, because it’s not going anywhere fast

Following six months of canvassing in all weathers, I was proud to deliver the best set of results in the history of Greenwich Labour – winning 52 of the 55 seats and, for the first time ever, electing a Labour councillor to represent every ward in the borough. Rather unexpectedly, I narrowly lost in the leadership election, so have had rather more spare time than I was planning.

It has been an incredible four years, with the coronavirus pandemic dominating, council housing being built again and a well-documented disagreement with Gavin Williamson about the safety of our pupils and teachers. As a trained teacher, I’ve headed back into the classroom for the final half term of a very long year, to see for myself the challenges that our teachers and support staff are dealing with.

As the end of term is finally upon us, and with three Secretaries of State for Education having passed through Sanctuary House in the short time that I’ve been trying to master every one’s names, it seems clear that we’re much closer to a general election than we were when I first said “good morning, 1C” six weeks ago.

With the Conservative leadership election underway and with only two major comments on schools from any of the candidates so far (Liz Truss said they’d all been crap when she grew up and Kemi Badenoch attacked the “superfluous” army of support staff that we know play an absolutely vital role in every aspect of the school day’, it’s vital that Labour seizes this empty space now to set out our offer, and I believe there are 3 immediate challenges we need to confront.

The cost-of-living crisis is having a very visible impact in schools and the level of poverty amongst children and families is much more evident than when I left the classroom four years ago. Hungry kids are coming to school in need of our support, behind the scenes our teams (superfluous, Kemi, I can assure you they are not) are well versed in the process of connecting families to the food bank and a neighbouring headteacher told me they’ve been completely overwhelmed by the number of families emailing for help with the cost of their child’s uniform.

In March of this year, I was proud to collaborate with the Child Poverty Action Group, which works with 16 of our schools in Greenwich to explore these issues in depth. With over 7,000 children receiving free school meals in my borough, and more than 40 percent of all of the children growing up in poverty, a Labour government must set out a clear plan end child poverty. And we know it can be done as we did it before.

The second major difference that I’ve noticed since being back is just how big the SEND challenge has become. The latest Department for Education data shows that just under 1.5 million children in our schools now have a special educational need or disability. Worryingly, the percentage of children with SEND but without an educational health care plan has increased to 12.6%.

In Greenwich, we saw a 14% increase in requests for an initial assessment last year. That was certainly not matched by a similar increase in funding for our teams to do the work. Whilst funding alone isn’t the only issue (workforce, recruitment, 72% of EHC plans are awarded to boys), it is an area where frankly most professionals would agree is in need of major investment.

Finally, the one thing that has really shocked me is the ongoing challenges that Covid is causing. Having taught every year group in the school over the past few weeks, the effect of the pandemic is clearer to me than it was just six weeks ago. No amount of catch up is going to tackle the clear emotional and social issues that are extremely evident in some children. Far from being an issue of missing education, I’ve seen first-hand that the real issue is one of child development, with some pupils simply not having the emotional tools that they would have developed had it not been for the pandemic.

The other thing that has been a particular challenge for us these last few weeks is that Covid has been everywhere; children have been off with the virus, staff have caught it again and one of my teacher friends has now had it three times. How on earth are we heading to almost three years of this, and the government is still refusing to prioritise teachers and support staff in schools for vaccination? It is complete and utter madness.

Whilst (thank goodness) we have less people dying than we did, the fact is that Covid has caused mayhem in schools at the end of term and the predictions that this would become a seasonal issue is not an accurate reflection of what’s happening. Our children have had far too much disruption to let this continue and I sincerely hope that our Labour frontbench makes a passionate call for all of our teachers and support staff to be offered a vaccine boost as soon as possible. In the long term, a Labour government must set out a plan for managing Covid properly. Unlike Boris Johnson, it isn’t going anywhere fast and there are some simple steps we should take to get a grip of the situation.