Schools are safe; how lessons will resume for all – Gavin Williamson

What schools have achieved to make sure that children and young people are kept safe and can continue to learn during this period is remarkable, but we all know the impact that lost time in education can have on our children’s outcomes.

Returning to normal educational routines as quickly as possible is critical to our national recovery, too. That is why we have been working to ensure that all pupils will be able to go back to schools and colleges full time in September, with Covid-secure measures in place, so that they have the opportunity to thrive and fulfil their full potential.

We continue to work closely with the country’s best scientific and medical experts to ensure that both children and staff are always as safe as possible.

Schools will continue minimising contact between children, including through grouping children together in bubbles and encouraging older children to distance.

At a minimum, this will mean keeping whole year groups in schools and colleges separate. This is in addition to the other protective measures that we know are so important for infection control, such as regular cleaning and hand washing. We are also ensuring that testing is readily available, so that parents, teachers and students can return with confidence. All staff, pupils and their families will continue to have access to testing if they develop Covid-19 symptoms.

By the start of the autumn term, we will provide all schools and colleges with a small number of home testing kits, which will be taken home by children or staff who develop symptoms while on site but who would struggle to access a testing centre.

This is so that they can have a test quickly and get the results back quickly. All schools will have access to direct support and advice from their local Public Health England health protection team to deal with any cases that may occur. In these challenging times, we are committed to ensuring that the nation’s children have not only a safe education, but an excellent one.

From September, we are asking schools and colleges to return to a broad and balanced ​curriculum, so that all pupils continue to be taught in a wide range of subjects, maintaining their choices for further study and employment.

We expect exams to go ahead in the summer of 2021. We understand the additional pressures on teaching staff to deliver such high standards of education in this difficult period.

We are also providing significant financial support to help pupils catch up on lost learning. As I announced in June, we will be providing a £1bn Covid catch-up package, including a £650m catch-up premium for state-funded primary, secondary and special schools, and a £350m national tutoring programme for the most disadvantaged pupils.

Evidence shows that six to 12 weeks of tutoring for a disadvantaged pupil can result in five months of catch-up. Schools are held accountable for the outcomes they achieve with their funding, including through Ofsted inspections, and the Covid catch-up funding will be no exception to this.

It is critical to ensure that no child loses more time in education and that, from September, all children who can be at school are at school. Schools and colleges will need to work with families to secure regular attendance from the start of the new academic year, with the reintroduction of mandatory attendance.

Our intention is that those with education, health and care plans or special educational needs will also be back in school or college in September.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank those parts of the sector that have already opened their doors to more children and who are doing a phenomenal job to help our children and young people settle back into their usual routines. Since schools and nurseries began to open more widely on 1 June, we have seen the number of children attending school steadily rise, with over 1.6 million pupils already back in school

I express my thanks to all childcare, school and further education staff who have gone above and beyond since March, and who will continue to do so as we prepare to welcome all of our children and young people back to school and college in September.

Gavin Williamson is the Education Secretary. This is part of his statement to Parliament on the reopening of schools.

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson, Editor