Heads were ‘best placed to decide’ on first day back
COUNCIL LEADER BLAMES A LACK OF NATIONAL DIRECTION FOR CONFUSION
THE leader of Nottingham City Council has insisted it was right that headteachers made the decision whether their schools should reopen or not after the Christmas break in light of the “absence of any national direction”.
Councillor David Mellen spoke of the “inconsistent policy” from the Government which led to some schools elsewhere in the country remaining closed and others in Nottingham reopening yesterday.
Councillor Mellen, the authority’s portfolio holder for schools and education, said the “majority” of schools in the city were open yesterday and that the council had been “fully supportive” of schools making their own decisions.
Speaking before Boris Johnson addressed the county last night, Councillor Mellen said: “It’s always best if children can be in school if it’s possible for them to be so – and schools, in absence of any national direction, had to make their own decision.
“We gave advice in terms of risk assessment and public health advice to our schools and their leaders made a decision for today.
“Obviously that might well be overtaken by a national decision.
“But, in absence of that, then it was right that the school leaders on the spot, who knew their staff, and knew their school sites, could make that decision – and some children had a day of school after a winter break when they haven’t been there for a fortnight.”
Some primary schools across the county announced they would only be open to vulnerable children and those of key workers on the first day of the new term.
But the situation sparked confusion among parents.
Councillor Mellen said: “I guess it’s a product of somewhat inconsistent policy from Government.
“The tiers are supposed to make restrictions similar for people in the same tiers.
“So it’s strange that schools in London are closed because they’re in Tier Four and schools in Nottingham are not closed, even though we’re in Tier Four, too.
“So it has been left down to local areas and local schools to make a judgement.
“[We’re in a] situation where we haven’t got any kind of guidance from Government, we’ve been supportive of our schools making their own riskassessed decisions as to whether their schools can open.
“The majority of our schools in Nottingham have been open today.
“Some of them have been on staff training anyway so they wouldn’t be open to children. But the majority of them have opened, at least in part, to children today.”
But he said he understood why parents and staff may have been concerned. Councillor Mellen added “lots of support” would be available to vulnerable children, saying: “Even where schools can’t open to all of their cohorts of children then we would encourage them to try and make some kind of provision for vulnerable children – and that would be backed up by our children social care staff.”
We gave advice in terms of risk assessment and public health and school leaders made a decision David Mellen