A ‘full return’ must mean a full education

From what the Government has been saying about the need for all schools to open fully in September, the country might have thought this was an unambiguous statement of intent, rather than a half-baked aspiration. Both the Prime Minister and Gavin Williamson, the Education Secretary, have insisted that at the end of the summer holidays all children will return on a mandatory basis. Mr Williamson said yesterday that fines would be imposed on recalcitrant parents unless “there is a good reason for absence”.

But, looking at the leaked guidance that he is expected to publish on Thursday, many parents may consider one good reason for keeping their children away to be a potential lack of a proper education.

The rules for restarting the state sector suggest the schooling that parents are desperate for their offspring to receive after six months away from the classroom is not going to be available until this time next year. There will be staggered start and finishing times; children are to be kept away from each other during breaks and at lunchtime; and protective whole-year “bubbles” will move around the schools with the same teachers. Heads are already questioning the practicality of these plans unless all social distancing rules are dropped.

Most worryingly, schools are being advised that, even with these stifling restrictions, they may not be able to teach the full curriculum before the summer term of 2021. Teachers will have to focus instead on core subjects like maths and English. Some subjects may be suspended altogether and children required to drop their GCSES.

This is not what parents had been led to believe was going to happen. Given the compelling evidence from around the world that children are more at risk from flu or an accident in the home than from coronavirus there is no reason why schools cannot reopen again as promised. Merely having pupils turning up without teaching them the usual range of subjects or facilitating extracurricular activities and sport is not what most people would understand to be a “full return”.

Mr Johnson will today deliver a speech outlining the Government’s strategy for getting the country back to work with the announcement of a range of infrastructure projects. But for parents, the most important thing he can do is to ensure that when their children go back to school in September, a “full return” means what it says.