Private schools prepare to reopen fully in August to pile pressure on ministers to deliver more classrooms
Fee-paying pupils get back to class amid mounting calls for urgent action to reopen state schools
A third of scotland’s private schools intend to reopen fully in August with many more moving to full attendance soon after, we can reveal.
Their planned reopening piles pressure on the Scottish Government and the country’s local authorities to do more to ensure state pupils get back to class.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was forced to intervene last week to insist so-called blended lessons, splitting faceto-face teaching with online schooling at home, was only a contingency plan. She told MSPs that every child would spend at least 50% of the time in class after it emerged some councils were planning to allow pupils to spend only one day a week in school.
The plans for blended learning were heavily criticised by parents, politicians and education experts, who warned it lacked urgency and ambition and would do most damage to the education of pupils in Scotland’s poorest communities. They called on councils to find new ways of teaching face to face and urged ministers to deliver the financial support needed to ensure as many state pupils are taught in class as possible.
Fee-paying schools, meanwhile, introduced comprehensive online learning systems soon after lockdown was imposed and many are now ready to reopen their gates in August.
The Scottish Council of Independent
Schools, which represents 70 private schools, said many headteachers began planning for the reopening of classrooms shortly after they were closed in March. Some schools have rented office space, some have introduced one-way systems and separate entrances for different year groups and many schools have come up with imaginative ways to improve hygiene. Boarding schools will also reopen by putting pupils into “bubbles”.
John Edward, director of the Scottish Council of Independent Schools, said: “All schools are working under the assumption that they want as many pupils as possible in school on day one. Some schools fully intend to be back 100%, with all pupils in school on the first day of opening. About a third are definite they are opening to everybody on the first day.
“In the rest, senior pupils not in school will participate in live classes. So, half will be in school and the other half will be at home watching and participating live. I expect to most pupils it will feel full-on, whether or not they are in school.”
Dr Michael Alderson, head of Glenalmond College, Perth, said: “We have every intention of delivering our education to our pupils in person, here at school when we return after the summer holidays early in September.”
Lomond School in Helensburgh is opening to all pupils on August 11. Each year group will be given a designated zone where they will enter and exit the building and access toilets and handwashing areas. The school will minimise movement around the building with a base classroom and area for each group of pupils, with teachers moving between classes. Pupils and staff will be asked to wear casual clothing that must be washed daily. The school will also implement an increased cleaning and sanitisation schedule throughout the day.
Johanna Urquhart, principal of Lomond School, said: “We’ve been trying to stay ahead of the game. We’ve been following what’s going on with international schools coming out of lockdown. Because we did a lot of that work, we were able to move very quickly. We had already measured rooms for social distancing, we had looked at keeping children in zones.
“By June 1, three days after the Scottish Government guidance came out, we were able to inform parents, who were understandably anxious, that we had a plan in place. I can’t speak for other schools, they have their own challenges, but I have a really dedicated staff team who really wanted to get back to teaching.”
Aberdeenshire school Lathallan will welcome all 200 pupils back to classrooms on August 20. Headmaster Richard Tooley began planning for the return in early May. The school has sourced a supply of hand sanitiser from a local distillery, bought fogging equipment to quickly disinfect classrooms and is setting out socially distanced zones to keep pupils apart.
Mr Toley said: “We had a look at what was happening abroad, particularly in Denmark which was one of the first to have children back. So, when the government guidance came out on May 28, we had done a lot of planning and we were in a position to put it into our own context.”
St Margaret’s School for Girls in Aberdeen has rented a nearby building to ensure all of its pupils can be in classrooms in August.
The school’s lease at 3-5 Albyn Place offers six very large teaching spaces, additional bathrooms and handwashing facilities, and an additional staff room.
Head teacher at Albyn School in Aberdeen, Dr Ian Long, said it will open five days a week to all pupils in August.
A large team of cleaners will deep clean the school every night and space will also be utilised at Queen’s Cross Church. Dr Long added: “For pupils who need to remain learning from home, lessons will be live streamed. For the most past, we will operate our normal timetable.”
The majority of pupils at Fettes College in Edinburgh will return to classrooms on September 2, and many of them will live in accommodation on school grounds.
Helen Harrison, head of Fettes, said: “It is our intention that all pupils, boarding and day, will be learning on-site observing the restrictions that are in place. As part of our contingency planning, we have created a six day-a-week recovery curriculum that incorporates a mix of face-to-face teaching and online learning.”
Critics of the Scottish Government’s plans for blended learning say there has been a lack of urgency and innovation.
Schools say that it will be impossible to get more pupils back to class until the two-metre social distance restriction is reduced while unions says they will not encourage teachers to return to work until they have assurances over safety.
However, critics say Education Secretary John Swinney was too quick to accept the limitations of a blended model, which he claims was being planned even before lockdown, and should have shown more ambition to get more pupils back to class. Mr Swinney was also criticised for suggesting next year’s exams might be scrapped even before the new term begins.
Schools have also been criticised for failing to ensure pupils took part in online learning during lockdown.
Jamie Greene, Scottish Conservative shadow education secretary, said: “If the government wanted to open Scottish schools in August, then they could. It will take resources and some radical thinking, but it is entirely possible to reopen schools safely if there is a plan and a will to do it.”
Scottish Government said: “The Scottish Government, councils and teachers are working to deliver the best educational opportunities for our children. We are prioritising the education and health of our school pupils. We know that for parents, there are no more important issues than the education and the health and safety of your children, and these are really anxious issues for parents to be dealing with.
“When schools reopen on August 11, we expect councils to have made arrangements that maximise the time that pupils spend having face-to-face learning safely. We don’t want blended learning to be in place a moment longer than is necessary, so we will be working with councils to return schools to normality as soon as it is safe to do so.”