Schools ‘have to come before pubs’
SCHOOLS must be prioritised over pubs and shops in planning for future coronavirus lockdowns, the Children’s Commissioner for England has warned.
Anne Longfield said children were too often “an afterthought” during the first lockdown as she published a paper setting out the key actions needed to ensure that youngsters are “at the heart” of future plans.
She argued that if any local or national lockdown takes place, schools should be the last places to be locked down, after pubs, restaurants and non-essential shops.
It comes after a new modelling study implied that reopening schools in September must be combined with a high-coverage test-trace-isolate strategy to avoid a second wave of Covid-19 later this year.
Ms Longfield’s briefing paper says keeping schools open should be the “absolute priority”, adding: “Education should be prioritised over other sectors: first to open, last to close.
“When only a limited amount of social interaction is feasible, the amount accounted for by education must be protected – at the expense of other sectors/ activities.”
The Children’s Commissioner believes reducing Covid-19 transmission in the community is very important “but it should not be automatically assumed that this requires closing schools – except as a last resort”.
With rapid testing of pupils and teachers, any confirmed Covid-19 cases and their close contacts can be isolated without necessarily having to send entire classes or year groups home, the briefing paper says.
Ms Longfield said that if schools do have to close, they must remain open for children of key workers and vulnerable children. She said this latter group should be renamed “priority children” and a concerted effort made to work with these families to increase the child’s attendance.
The briefing says Government should consult on the type of children covered by the priority list and allow more flexibility for teachers to identify youngsters as a priority where they have concerns.
The paper argues that where other children need to work online, the Department for Education must expand its laptop programme so that pupils in all year groups who need them can receive devices and 4G wi-fi routers quickly.
Ms Longfield said consideration should be given to the impact on children expected to take exams next summer so that they are not disadvantaged, especially in the case of extended local lockdowns.
There is a risk that some children will struggle to transition back to school after a period away, the paper says, adding that schools should make pastoral care a clear priority and identify reasons for nonattendance or challenging behaviour and what support youngsters need.