Boris Johnson’s education catch up tsar today suggested the school day could be extended to help pupils recover from the coronavirus crisis.
The Government has announced that secondary schools will be given funding to run summer schools for the pupils who need extra classes the most.
Ministers considered a wide variety of options as part of their recovery plans, including longer school days and shorter summer holidays, but neither proposal was included in the details set out last month.
However, Sir Kevan Collins, the Government’s Education Recovery Commissioner, told MPs that a longer school day has not been ruled out.
Asked if an extended school day would be a better option than summer schools, Sir Kevan replied: ‘I tend to think that right now it is not a time for either or, it is a time for all things being considered and all things being available.’
His comments came after a SAGE scientist said schools will be able to reopen ‘safely’ from next week with the package of measures set out to mitigate risks from Covid-19.
Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine and child health at the University of Liverpool, said that increased ventilation, tests and mask wearing will all contribute to safe reopening of schools next week.
Mr Johnson has prioritised the reopening of schools as he plots a route out of England’s third national lockdown. They are set to open their doors on March 8.
However, Geoff Barton, from teaching union the Association of School and College Leaders, said that testing could mean that secondary school openings are ‘staggered’.
Sir Kevan Collins, the Government’s Education Recovery Commissioner, told MPs that a longer school day has not been ruled out
Calum Semple, professor of outbreak medicine and child health at the University of Liverpool, said that increased ventilation, tests and mask wearing will all contribute to safe reopening
Boris Johnson’s roadmap for easing lockdown will see schools across England reopen on March 8
The Government pledged an extra £400million of funding last month, on top of the £300million announced in January, as part of its education recovery plan to help set up summer schools.
The extra classes will be introduced for pupils who need them the most, such as incoming Year 7 pupils, while one-to-one and small group tutoring schemes will be expanded.
Ministers considered longer school days as part of the recovery plans but it was not formally included in the details last month.
Rob Halfon, the Tory chairman of the Education Select Committee, today asked Sir Kevan whether an extended school day could be a ‘better option’ than summer schools because pupils would already be in classrooms amid fears many children would not attend classes in the holidays.
Sir Kevan said: ‘I tend to think that right now it is not a time for either or, it is a time for all things being considered and all things being available.
‘I think what is very important about the summer school approach this time around… is that it is for schools to determine and target which children if any they want to bring to summer schools.
‘The most important thing that is going to happen when the children go back, and as soon as they can go back the better in my view, as soon as they go back is the schools will assess, they will meet, they will know their children, trying to work out what different children need so the right children could be targeted for the summer schools.
‘I think schools are right to call that and that will I think help with the attendance.’
He added: ‘So I don’t think it is either or at the moment. I think we need, for some children I think summer schools can be extremely supportive, particularly if you are in year seven, you are going to your secondary school and you want a couple of weeks before you get there, I can see the value of that.’
The Government has said its total investment in helping to boost pupil learning in the wake of the pandemic is £1.7billion.
Mr Halfon said just £18million has been allocated to help pre-reception children and he asked Sir Kevan if he believes that to be sufficient.
The catch up tsar said the overall £1.7billion package will not be enough but insisted it is a ‘good start’.
He told the committee: ‘No, it is not sufficient. I think the whole package isn’t sufficient. I think it is a good start but this is not the recovery plan.’
Earlier, Mr Barton told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme that he believed testing requirements will result in a ‘staggered’ return to classrooms.
He said: ‘I think for secondaries you’ve got the issue of the testing, which means there is inevitably going to be a bit of a staggered start because those young people won’t be able to go into their classroom until the first of those tests has been done.
‘Over the first two weeks they need three of those tests and then the responsibility moves back to the home.’
Asked when it will be that most pupils will be in schools, he said: ‘It’s not going to be on March 8 in the majority of schools – part of this comes down to what is their school site like? How much space they have got, (you have heard of) drama studios and sports halls being taken out of action in order to be used for testing, some schools will be more constrained than others in terms of that.’
Mr Barton added: ‘If we see next week for secondary and further education as a transitional week of starting to bring them back into school, starting to teach them how the testing works, the week after that, starting the 15th, is going to look as normal as it might do.’
The Government has confirmed twice-weekly testing for all families and households with primary, secondary school and college-aged children and young people. Primary school children will not be regularly tested.
Prof Semple, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), said that after children have performed Covid-19 tests under supervision, they ‘get used to it’.
‘Perhaps we’re generating a new group of scientists in the process,’ he added.
He told BBC Breakfast the package of measures recommended by the Government – increased ventilation, masks and tests – mean schools ‘can be safe’.
He added: ‘The good news is we’re finding quite low rates of active infection within the schools.
‘We’re using the lateral flow antigen tests that identify those children that are most likely to be infectious – and about 1.2 per cent of school pupils are testing positive and about 1.6 per cent of staff are testing positive.
‘It is really low in most occasions – sometimes in some areas it’s down to 0.4 per cent.
‘So, as a game-changer, it is giving confidence that schools are safe.’
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has prioritised the reopening of schools as he plots a route out of England’s third national lockdown. Pictured is a file photo of pupils wearing face masks in a
It came after new data revealed that teachers are not at a higher risk of infection in their jobs than people in other professions.
The Office for National Statistics found no statistical evidence of a difference between school staff testing positive for coronavirus antibodies compared with the wider working-age population in the same local authorities.
‘Early findings suggest that school staff were not at higher risk of infection than working age adults in the wider community, but also that there are some COVID-19 infections in schools,’ Sinead Langan, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), said.
‘There is always a potential for transmission and it’s difficult to say if infection is occurring in schools or in the wider community.’
Year 7 students practice social distancing measures at City of London Academy Highgate Hill in September
The ONS study, produced with LSHTM and Public Health England (PHE), tested staff and pupils in primary and secondary schools between Dec 2-10, just after England’s second national lockdown ended. Schools remained open in the second lockdown.
The survey found high levels of implementation of measures to keep schools COVID-19 secure, which Shamez Ladhani, consultant paediatrician at PHE, said was a likely reason that levels were not higher.
‘One of the most likeliest reasons that we don’t see large and widespread infections in schools must be because of all the mitigation processes that are in place,’ he told reporters.
‘Difficult as they may be, they clearly do work to keep the infection rates at least close to the community rate.’
