First Minister denies giving ‘false promise’ to parents over school terms

FIRST Minister Mark Drakeford has that the case for an extension of the school term was always something that had be “resolved locally”.

And he strongly denied giving parents a “false promise” that children would be going back to school for four weeks.

Education Minister Kirsty Williams announced on June 3 that schools in Wales would be returning on June 29 and the school summer term would be extended by a week.

The summer term was extended by one week to July 27, and the autumn half-term holiday will be stretched to two weeks.

But on Friday, nearly three weeks after that announcement, some councils in Wales confirmed that they would be ending the term after just three weeks on July 17.

Councils in Cardiff, Wrexham, Monmouthshire, Newport, Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly told schools not to open for the last week. On Anglesey schools won’t even be going back on June 29 because of an outbreak of Covid-19 at the island’s chicken-processing plant.

However some councils will be asking schools, including those in Conwy, to operate for all four weeks of the planned shortened summer term.

It’s understood that the Welsh Government was unable to reach an agreement with trade unions on the fourth week.

That has left the decision in the hands of councils, many of which are not forcing the issue and are telling schools only to open for three weeks from June 29.

Asked about why some schools will only reopen for three weeks during the summer instead of four, Mr Drakeford told the daily briefing yesterday: “The Education Minister set out the position of the Welsh Government that where it is possible to do so, we believe it is in the interest of children in Wales for schools to open for four weeks, but it was always the case that the fourth week, we we were clear at the beginning, moved into non-contractual territory.

“Our proposal was for teachers to work one extra week, the fourth week in July, and get that week back as an extra week at the half-term in October.

“In the end, these things can only be resolved locally. Different local authorities face many, many different sorts of contexts and, where local authorities are able to open schools for the fourth week, that is the right thing to do, but where they are not able to do it, then they, as the employers, have to be able to make that decision.

“They need to make it in consultation with their headteachers, with their staff and indeed with their parents.

“It is for them to carry that discussion with the fourth week forward.”