SKIPPING BACK INTO SCHOOLS!
...and was that the sound of a nation’s parents breathing a sigh of relief? Sturgeon aiming for gradual return
CHILDREN finally returned to the classroom yesterday after months of home-schooling.
Youngsters between the ages of four and eight put their uniforms on for face-to-face teaching in Scotland for the first time this year.
They were joined by some senior secondary pupils who were allowed back for essential practical work. Children in early learning and childcare also returned.
It comes two months after home-schooling was reintroduced by Nicola Sturgeon following a spike in Covid-19 cases after the Christmas holidays.
Despite the relaxation, teenagers must stick to two-metre social distancing measures within schools and on school buses, while Covid tests will be made available to them and teachers.
At Inverkip Primary School in Renfrewshire, children and parents followed a one-way system as they entered the building, sanitising their hands before heading to their classrooms. Eilidh Hyett, seven, a Primary 3 pupil, said she had missed seeing her friends and teachers.
She added: ‘When we come into school there’s a hand sanitiser box and we sanitise our hands before we go into the class.
‘We always stay two metres apart from each other and we don’t really touch each other and we don’t touch each other’s things.’
Sarah Barr’s children Nairn, six, and Ruiari, four, attend the school. She said she was confident it was safe for them to return. ‘The school has been great at explaining all the safety measures,’ she added.
Una Nicolson, headteacher of Inverkip Primary, said the main challenges would be ensuring that the school remains safe and looking after the children’s mental health.
The school has instructed parents on when to drop off children at the gates to ensure distancing is maintained.
Eleven-year-old Jamie Williamson waved off his sister Ella, six, as she headed back to Lainshaw Primary in Stewarton, Ayrshire. Their father, James Williamson, 45, said he and his wife Lorna, 38, a primary school teacher, had struggled to balance working from home and home-schooling.
Mr Williamson, a photographer, said: ‘I’m lucky that my wife is a teacher, so that has helped, but she has her own work to be doing.
‘Not being able to see their friends has been hard on both of [the children] and I really think all the kids should be allowed to go back now. It isn’t good for their mental health.
‘Ella was really excited. She was up at 7.30am, her uniform was on and she was ready to go.
‘She’s never been one who didn’t want to go to school anyway so she was especially keen. She told me the main thing she missed was the school dinners.’
Education Secretary John Swinney said it was ‘critical’ that parents follow mask-wearing and physical distancing rules. Urging Scots to follow public health advice, he told the BBC’s Good Morning Scotland: ‘The biggest threat to the opening of schools is not outbreaks in schools, it is community transmission of the virus.’
When asked if parents at the school gates contributed to prevalence of the virus before this lockdown, Mr Swinney said: ‘The whole community was driving the virus.
‘I don’t particularly want to single out particular groupings – the whole of society was interacting too much, that’s why we had to go into lockdown.’
Mr Swinney said ministers would be monitoring data carefully as the initial cohort of pupils returns before deciding on whether others should go back to class.
Professor Devi Sridhar, chairman of global public health at Edinburgh University, told Good Morning Scotland: ‘I think we should keep perspective.
‘There will likely be cases emerging in schools over the next few weeks but the vast majority of schools should be fine.’
‘We always stay two metres apart’
NICOLA Sturgeon has said she hopes more children will be able to return to the classroom within weeks.
The First Minister said more pupils could be allowed back to class in the middle of next month, once a review takes place of the first phase of the school return.
But she also warned that sending all pupils back at the same time, as planned by Boris Johnson in England, could send coronavirus cases ‘through the roof’.
Getting more pupils back to school will be the top priority when the Scottish Government unveils its route map for exiting lockdown today.
Primary 1-3 pupils returned to full-time face-to-face learning yesterday, while nurseries also reopened and a limited number of senior secondary pupils are able to complete practical work.
Speaking at her coronavirus briefing yesterday, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘Today is undoubtedly an important milestone and a very welcome milestone. That first step to restoring greater normality to our lives. And I know that it will be a particular relief to many parents across the country.
‘But it’s really important that we remember that it has been made possible only by the sacrifices we have all made to bring numbers down. Our headroom and room for manoeuvre remains limited.
‘So we hope that more children will be able to go back to in-school education next month but our ability to achieve that, depends on our ability to continue to suppress the virus.’
The first step of Mr Johnson’s route map for exiting lockdown will see all schools in England return on March 8.
Miss Sturgeon will only consider whether more children can return in Scotland when she reviews the first phase next Tuesday, although any changes are unlikely to take effect before the middle of next month. She admitted she cannot say for sure if some pupils may not be able to return before the summer, because ‘I don’t know that right now’.
She added: ‘We will set out on March 2 what we think the next phase of school return will be.
‘I’ve said, in order to give as much certainty as possible, because we need to monitor what is happening today over a couple of weeks, that that is unlikely to be before March 13, but I really hope that we get more children back to school later in March.’
Jo Bisset, organiser for parents group UsForThem Scotland, said: ‘If Scottish pupils are forced to stay out of school for longer than their English counterparts it will create problems. They will be receiving a lower standard of education than the very people they’ll be competing against for jobs and university places.’