David BLUNKETT
Pubs and festivals are open, but as term starts we are still failing to put young people first, says David Blunkett
This time last year, pupils of all ages were waiting expectantly for the full reopening of schools in England and Wales after losing out on an entire summer term, experiencing exam chaos and confusion from policymakers at the highest level.
One year on, we seem hardly to have moved a jot. With just a few days before the start of a new term, there seems to be little clarity as to what to expect. Whether it is testing older students, staggered starts or union leaders arguing to slow down the return until ventilation units are available, the only certainty is uncertainty. We still have a Secretary of State playing catch up.
In Scotland, where schools have been back for a couple of weeks, there are those already pointing to pupils as the cause of a rise in infections. In reality, the massive influx of visitors on staycation is much more likely to be behind the increased incidence, and the largest rise in the UK has been in Fermanagh in Northern Ireland, where the schools are still closed.
Despite a recent Covid-19 study conducted in part by Public Health England, which concluded that schools “were not hubs of infection”, a prevailing anxiety persists around schools reopening. Yet, neither panic over rising infection levels nor new testing regimes should be allowed to disrupt the full return to education. It would be both damaging and perverse to make a return to school more difficult than going down to the local pub or even the Reading or Leeds Festivals this weekend.
The school year finished as it had begun: with chaos. The NHS Test and Trace app, along with mixed guidance on excluding pupils who may have been pinged, saw a staggering 1.2million children out of school by the time term finished. The full story of how this may have affected a generation is still to be told, but this summer’s exam results already paint a worrying picture of the cost in terms of inequality and injustice. Not just between different types of school – but between different parts of the country. At GCSE level, we saw disastrous results in some localities in the north. Take Hartlepool – the focus of Tory success in a recent by-election – “levelling up” seems to have more to do with tarting up buildings than transforming the life chances of young people there.
Students of all ages have been affected dramatically by what’s happened (or rather, what hasn’t) in terms of their education. Those in the year groups leading up to next year’s GCSE and A-levels find themselves at the forefront of ongoing uncertainty – and downright indecision – that is still affecting their critical exam years.
This week, this newspaper revealed that consideration is being given to vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds without parental consent. Will that appease those whose first instinct is to send pupils home, and finally put an end to artificial bubbles?
Clear decision-making and good communication are, once again, painfully lacking. Not
only is a full return to learning a prerequisite for narrowing the extended gap between the haves and have-nots, it is crucial to providing a foundation for the additional support available through the National Tutoring Programme and initiatives being organised locally by schools themselves.
Some people object to the term “catch-up”, but frankly that’s what it is. Catching up on lost time, lost access to the full curriculum, and lost opportunity for the enrichment activities which are so vital for the social development, mental health and physical well-being of pupils.
Where are the messages to schools about ensuring confidence in the education system? Professor Neil Ferguson, the Imperial College epidemiologist whose modelling was used as the basis for the UK’S lockdown policy, told the BBC last month that by late September/october the bulk of the pandemic will be behind us.
With most staff fully vaccinated and now over-16s having access to the vaccine, and with youngsters seen as low risk or unlikely drivers of infection, why is the commitment to full-time and on-time face-to-face teaching still lacking?
One further critical element: what are the teachers expected to teach? To know what next year’s mix of examinations and assessment will look like entails knowledge, now, about what must be learnt, how much of the curriculum will be expected to be covered, and how their students’ performance will be judged. Again, no one seems to have any clear answers about what is going on nor what this year’s cohort are to expect.
The message should be clear. No “ifs” or “buts” and, above all, no constant mind-changing and advicereversal. With four-fifths of the adult population now double-vaccinated, we need to prioritise those who have truly been the long-term losers from this pandemic – our children.
Boris Johnson made a promise in April that education should be the top priority. It’s time he fulfils it. Back to school needs to mean back to normal. If not now, when?
Sixteen: Class of 2021 airs on Thursdays at 9pm on Channel 4