Parents say pupils should be allowed back to school NOW amid fears for their children’s wellbeing

Furious parents have said pupils should be allowed back to school now amid fears for the wellbeing of their children after the Government scrapped its target of getting all primary school pupils back in the classroom before the summer holidays.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson made the announcement amid warnings the two metre social distancing rule will make a full return to the classroom impossible. 

The Government’s long-stated ‘ambition’ was to see all primary children return for at least a month before the end of the academic year but unions and councils have said school buildings would have to double in size to make that happen.

Smaller classes and social distancing requirements have forced the Education Secretary into a rethink as he conceded on Tuesday ‘we are not able to welcome all primary children back for a full month before the summer’.

He said large schools which do have space to bring back more pupils should do so in the coming weeks as he promised all children will be back in the classroom in England in September. 

However, anxious parents told MailOnline that the Government’s U-turn could leave their children irrevocably damaged, with one father demanding to know, ‘what is going to be different if they back in September’ instead of if they return to school now.     

Gary Murray, who has two daughters aged 15 and eight, said: ‘The question I feel a lot of parents want answering is; what is going to be different if they go back in September to what is different to them going back to school now?’

Another parent, Lindsay Astle, from Nottingham, told MailOnline her eight-year-old son has been ‘massively affected’ and suffered nightmares as a result of his school being closed.  

Other parents said they were ‘deeply concerned’ about the impact of social distancing on their children  and likened it to ‘child abuse’.   

Boris Johnson is under increasing pressure from his Cabinet to slash the two metre rule in order to make it easier for schools, shops and the hospitality sector to return. Numerous countries have a one metre or 1.5 metre rule. 

Hopes of the two metre restriction being reduced were given a boost after the World Health Organisation said it is ‘very rare’ for asymptomatic coronavirus patients to pass on the disease. 

The government’s plans to reopen schools being thrown into disarray came as:

• Furious parents demanded to know how they can be expected to go back to work if their children cannot return to school;
• Education leaders and unions warned there is not enough space to reopen safely if the two metre rule remains in place; 
• A coronavirus testing programme will be rolled out to 100 schools across England by the end of the summer term with around 200 staff and children tested in each; 
• Senior Tory MP Robert Halfon called on Mr Johnson to set up a ‘national education army’ of volunteers to set up temporary classrooms in school gyms and public libraries;
• Mr Williamson resisted calls for schools to sit over the summer but said some sort of longer term ‘catch up scheme’ is being considered amid fears it could take disadvantaged pupils more than a year to recover;
• The Education Secretary said a Public Health England restriction on class sizes and social distancing measures are ‘limitations’ to getting more children back to school;
• Critics demanded to know why other European nations have managed to fully reopen their schools but the UK is struggling to follow suit; 

Mr Murray said his teenage daughter had been invited to an end-of-year picnic despite having no lessons while the school remains closed. 

He added: ‘My [other] daughter has had no contact and very little school homework and no interaction with children her own age. 

‘We feel this will have a long term affect on her and we are still non the wiser to when she can go back to school.  

‘Covid 19 is not going anywhere anytime soon and people are now going out to shops and beaches – including teachers – so why can’t the schools come back and try and get our kids – the future generation – back to school. 

‘The government are giving mixed messages and don’t really know what they are doing. With safety measures in place why can’t schools start to get back to normal? We are just writing off the next year or so with kids education; this will have a far worse affect on people than Covid-19 has.’ 

Mother-of-three Lindsay Astle, from Nottingham, told MailOnline her eight-year-old son has been ‘massively affected’ and suffered nightmares as a result of his school being closed. 

She said: ‘He’s generally a happy well rounded kid but isolation has done so much damage to him already. 

‘He’s started having nightmares, he’s very emotional over everything, lacks focus and drive. School work is very difficult because I also have two four-year-olds who want to be involved with everything and it’s hard for my son to focus. 

‘Plus we haven’t had an awful lot of school work direction from his school.

‘I am very worried about him and what this is doing to him. My fear of coronavirus has been completely overshadowed by fear of what this whole situation is doing to him, not seeing his friends, socialising, being a normal kid.

‘I can’t believe what a mess it all is when the chances of anything serious happening to the school children if they catch coronavirus is extremely low! I would send him back to school tomorrow if I could and he would happily skip in desperate to see his friends and have some sort of normality.’ 

Daniella and Anthony Nevill, who are parents to toddlers, told MailOnline they are ‘deeply concerned about the effect of any form of social distancing on children.’

Mrs Nevill added: ‘The debate has failed to focus on the mental health problems that will arise from social distancing. To expect children under 10 to not touch /play naturally, be controlled rigidly and using fear measures signs, PPE ) will end up traumatising a generation of children. 

‘It is inhumane and tantamount to child abuse. No one is speaking for the children; the economy, the unions.’  

Primary schools started their phased reopening to pupils in reception, year one and year six on June 1 but official Government statistics showed only 52 per cent of primary schools were actually open by June 4. 

By that point some 659,000 children were back in the classroom – just seven per cent of all pupils who would normally be attending school. 

The next step in the Government’s reopening plan will see some year 10 and 12 students allowed to meet with their teachers from June 15 as they prepare for an exam year. 

Ministers want secondary schools to fully reopen in September but there are growing doubts over whether that will be possible with Health Secretary Matt Hancock saying that is the ‘earliest’ they could return to something approaching normal.  

Anne Longfield, the Children’s Commissioner for England, today said she was ‘incredibly concerned’ about the long-term impact on children’s education and wellbeing and warned youngsters could remain ‘isolated’, with many living in ‘fragile’ family environments. 

Company director Samantha Jones has a five-year-old and a nine-month-old baby and is juggling childcare and home schooling with working from home.

She told MailOnline: ‘It’s unfair on our five-year-old as he is desperate to see his friends.

‘Our school was due to open on Monday and I am an advocate of the mental well being of my child and promote him going back to school as soon as possible to be with friends, teachers and have normality and burn off energy!’

The mother added that she and her husband will need to work at ‘full capacity’ in the summer holidays and do not know what to do for childcare. 

She said she is unhappy that schools will still close for the traditional summer holiday, despite the fact that they have been closed for months.   

‘So I want the Government to ideally open schools as soon as possible and also summer childcare. Failing that can we not just push through this summer for the children and not have summer holidays, instead why not close during December for 4 weeks when flu season is in full swing?

‘What do we do for help in the summer holidays when we have to work at full capacity and cannot afford to keep my husband from working any longer?

‘What will happen is that people will break rules and pull in help from family and friends (none of whom are nearby) and break rules that may still exist.

‘Surely if bars may open by mid Jun /early July; why can’t schools and our children restore their mental health and education? They are the lowest risk groups!

‘Clearly safety is the first importance and we would never put our child at risk if we didn’t feel comfortable in what the school were doing in all of this, but surely some common sense can be applied and specifically to low risk areas / groups.’

Another mother, Jeanne Hyslop-Hall, said her seven-year-old daughter is ‘really suffering’ emotionally.  

Jeanne Hyslop-Hall added: ‘My year 7-year-old is really suffering emotionally. She Facetimes her friends every day and we have a school structure in place during the week so she is working each day.

‘Luckily I am not working but I also have a 1-year-old so looking after him whilst trying to home school is a challenge. My daughter is dyslexic so I am continuing to be as structured as possible because I am so worried she will fall behind.

‘However the guidance from the school has been loose at best. Google classroom has only just been implemented and we have had two measly conversations with the class teacher in the last 11 weeks. ‘ 

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Williamson conceded the Government had no choice but to drop its ‘ambition’ for all primary school pupils to return before the summer holidays. 

He said: ‘We continue to follow the best scientific advice and believe that this cautious, phased return is the most sensible course of action to take.

‘While we are not able to welcome all primary children back for a full month before the summer we continue to work with the sector on the next steps where we would like to see schools who have the capacity to bring back more children in those smaller class sizes.

‘To do so, if they are able to, before the summer holidays.

‘We will be working to bring all children back to school in September.

‘I know students who are due to take exams in 2021 will have experienced considerable disruption to their education this year and we are committed to doing all we can to minimise the effects of this.

‘Exams will take place next year and we are working with Ofqual and the exam boards on our approach to these.’ 

Currently children are placed in ‘protective bubbles’ of no more than 15 per class at primary schools to help prevent the spread of the disease.

But this often requires using additional classrooms or different areas of the school, with some not able to find enough space to fit all their pupils in. 

Mr Williamson said the class size restriction imposed by Public Health England is a ‘limitation’ to getting more children back to school. 

‘That obviously does limit the amount of ability to have as many year groups in school as we’d like,’ he said. 

‘But as this is changed and as this is modified this will give us the ability to slowly and cautiously move forward in terms of welcoming more children back to school when that is the right time.’

Mr Williamson was asked by MPs if he would consider setting up ‘catch-up schemes over the summer’ and he replied: ‘This is certainly what we are looking at but we are looking at something much more wide and much more long term because we don’t believe that actually just purely looking at the summer period is enough in order to be able to assist children to get the catch-up that they truly need.’

Tory MP Robert Halfon, chairman of the Commons Education Committee, has urged the Government to set up a ‘national education army’ of volunteers who could set up temporary classrooms in school gyms and public libraries. 

Earlier he had urged the Government not to ditch its primary schools ‘ambition’. 

He said the UK was a ‘strange country’ for seemingly prioritising reopening pubs over schools. 

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, former minister Mr Halfon said: ‘I think we’re a strange country in which we turn a blind eye to mass demonstrations all over in every city, we campaign for pubs and cafes to open and yet we say to open schools before September is too risky when all the evidence – from the World Health Organisation, from many other European countries, from the chief medical officer in the UK – suggests otherwise.

‘I think the Government should definitely think again on this and continue with a phased reopening of schools because I think too many disadvantaged children are not getting an education.

‘We could have an epidemic of educational poverty and be damaging the life chances of hundreds of thousands of young people.’

Department for Education guidance states that school classes should be capped at 15 pupils in order to follow coronavirus-related social distancing measures and keep children two metres apart at all times.

Some headteachers have complained that, after opening up to reception, year one and year six last week, they do not have the ‘physical space’ to take more children.

Addressing the issue of space constraints, Mr Halfon said: ‘I appreciate that not all schools can open because they may have old buildings, it may be very difficult.

‘But just because you can’t do it everywhere, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t open schools anywhere.’ 

Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘It has taken the Government some time to recognise what was obvious to most.

‘The Government’s social distancing rules made it impossible for primary schools to admit all pupils before the summer holidays.

‘Primary schools and secondary schools will not reopen to all pupils until September at the earliest. But even that date cannot, as Matt Hancock has recognised, be taken for granted.’

She said a ‘national plan for education’ was needed in England, covering ‘all possible scenarios’ with a focus on ‘blended learning’ at home and in school.

There should be free internet access and public buildings such as libraries and community centres could be requisitioned to provide extra space for lessons, she suggested.

GCSEs and A-levels should be redesigned to be fair to all pupils – including those without access to computers at home – the union chief added. 

Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders’ union the NAHT, had said before Mr Williamson’s announcement: ‘Returning all pupils before the end of this term will present unsolvable practical barriers if the hierarchies of control are to be maintained.

‘If confirmed in the House of Commons later, we’re pleased to see the Government will not force the impossible.

‘Schools will continue to use their flexibilities intelligently to deliver the very best for all the pupils in their school.’ 

Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said it has been ‘abundantly clear’ that the Government’s dates for reopening schools were ‘ill-considered, premature and unworkable’. 

Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union (NEU), welcomed the news that the ‘ambition’ for a full return to primary schools before the summer had been dropped.

But he added: ‘The Government needs to have a plan to support disadvantaged children during the summer holidays.

‘There needs to be a plan for what happens during the next school year. Education will be disrupted during the autumn term at least.’

The difficulty in reopening schools while also sticking to the two metre social distancing rule has increased pressure on ministers to rethink the restriction.

But Ian Robinson, chief executive of the Oak Partnership Trust which has schools in Taunton, Somerset, said he did not think reducing the social distancing restrictions from two metres to one would help matters in schools.

‘We’ve worked on the principle of no more than 15 children per classroom, so one of our schools, when we’ve got all three of our year groups in and over 50 key worker and vulnerable children in, have 250 children on site – they have got 12 classrooms,’ he said.

‘If you divide those children into groups of 15, you don’t have any more classrooms, you don’t have any more teachers to be able to bring any more year groups back in.’

Mr Robinson said it was not a ‘silver bullet’ to bring disadvantaged children in before the end of term and said there were ‘broader’ issues to resolve, including making laptops more available and continuing free school meals during the summer holidays.

He added: ‘I’m not sure there is much of a gain to bringing children back for four weeks, to be honest.’ 

Mr Hancock last night appeared to concede that the Government could struggle to reopen secondary schools by the start of the new academic year. 

Students in year 10 and 12 will be allowed to meet teachers from June 15 as they prepare for exam years but the goal of a total reopening in September looks unlikely. 

Mr Hancock said it was still ‘our current working plan’ that secondary schools in England would not reopen until September ‘at the earliest’.  

The row over reopening came as Mr Hancock announced plans to roll out coronavirus tests to teachers and pupils. 

The testing programme will be implemented in 100 schools across England by the end of the summer term with around 200 staff and children tested in each. 

The programme will be entirely voluntary and will be a mix of swab tests to see if people currently have coronavirus and antibody blood tests to see if people have previously had the disease. 

‘This study will help us better understand how common asymptomatic and mild cases of Covid-19 are so that we can support parents, pupils and teachers and support staff, and inform our ongoing response to this new virus,’ Mr Hancock said.

The move may allay some concerns that the lockdown has been eased too quickly, as well as those from teaching unions over staff safety.

With children less likely to show coronavirus symptoms, swab tests would be used to better understand the spread of the disease throughout schools.

Antibody tests on blood samples would also be available for a small proportion of schools to see if pupils and staff have had Covid-19 and recovered.

The Department of Health and Social Care stressed the scheme would be voluntary, with parents and guardians being asked to provide informed consent before testing is carried out.

Dr Shamez Ladhani, a paediatric infectious diseases consultant at Public Health England, said: ‘The results of this study will play an important role in informing wider surveillance planned for educational settings in the autumn term.

‘Through active surveillance, contact tracing and the close monitoring of any clusters of cases, we are committed to ensuring the safety of students and staff returning to school in the coming weeks and months.’

The Liberal Democrats’ education spokeswoman Layla Moran said the measure would be ‘too little, too late’ as she called for the Government to get the test and trace system up to speed to prevent a second wave of Covid-19.