Praise for 'heartening’ efforts of Northumberland schools to reopen

While schools have remained open for the children of key workers and vulnerable students, the majority of students have been learning from home during the coronavirus lockdown.

From June 1, under government direction, pupils in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 have started to return to school in England.

Northumberland County Council’s director of education, Dean Jackson, revealed on Monday June 15 that more than 6,000 pupils were in school, with 161 schools open and 132 taking children from the eligible age groups, having previously reported that a further 1,200 youngsters are now in pre-school provision across the county.

‘It’s going to be a long, slow process to get back to normal but we are on our way,’ he said.

However, last week, the Education Secretary Gavin Williamson announced that the Government was dropping plans to get all primary-school pupils back for a month before the summer holidays.

This came a day after Health Secretary Matt Hancock conceded that secondary schools in England may not fully reopen until September ‘at the earliest’.

Northumberland’s Conservative and council leader, Coun Peter Jackson, shared a comment by former Tory and Ukip MP Douglas Carswell on his Twitter account, which appeared to lay the blame at the door of parents and teachers, but he described the response of schools in the county as ‘heartening’.

Mr Carswell’s tweet said: ‘I’m baffled as to why it is taking schools so long to reopen. Do parents not want the kids to go, or do teachers not want to teach?’

However, Coun Jackson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “I’ve been really impressed with the way our schools right across Northumberland have been handling the crisis.

“Most of them have been open all the way through for the children particularly of key workers or for vulnerable children, so thousands have been going to school for the last 12 weeks.

“What I’m very concerned about is those children who are losing out on their education.

“I think the positive attitude of schools in Northumberland on opening up, but only in a very safe way, has been very heartening, so they have taken their responsibility very seriously.

“I think there are only about 10 schools in Northumberland that haven’t opened yet and they’re for particular reasons, generally very small schools where social distancing isn’t possible at all.

“The vast majority of our schools are open and looking at ways to extend their offer. Thousands more children in our county are going back to school, but it’s going to be a little bit different, it’s not just going to be school as normal.

“Class sizes are obviously going to be a lot smaller, social-distancing aspects in all of the schools have been thoroughly gone through by headteachers with their staff.

“I think education can resume in a fashion, but it won’t be as it was before.”

And Coun Jackson offered assurances that the local authority will help schools if, for example, they need more space to be able to welcome back more pupils in a safe way.

He said: “The council’s education officers have been talking on a daily basis with all of the schools, offering them support in any way possible to look for a way forward to open up education to more and more young people, so some of that might be supplies of protective equipment for staff, it might be offers of extra space in other buildings, and advice on health and safety or any other matters they need us to help them with.”

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