‘Council’s ‘do what you like’ approach is not helpful for schools’
UNION OFFICER ACCUSED EDUCATION CHIEFS OF BEING TOO HANDS-OFF
EDUCATION chiefs at Kirklees Council have been accused of abdicating responsibility over the partial re-opening of schools.
Hazel Danson, an officer with the National Education Union (NEU), said there were concerns that schools were being trusted to carry out effective risk assessments for teachers and support staff without local authority checks.
And she said despite being questioned by teaching unions the council had not revealed how many local authority schools in the borough were re-opening, how many pupils were returning to class or how many risk assessments the council had seen. She called it “a hands-off approach”.
Ms Danson, who is district secretary for Kirklees NEU, said there were real concerns among teachers that what she described as a “do what you like apporoach” was unhelpful.
She said: “Every school before it re-opens has to have its risk assessment signed off. That applies to catering, cleaning and crossing personnel.
“The joint unions have been asking for three weeks that the council quality controls risk assessments and they won’t do it.
“The council is responsible for safeguarding health and safety.
“Yet we don’t know how many schools have taken up advice. There’s no co-ordination.
“Nobody seems to have handle as to what’s going on. It’s an abdication of all responsibility.”
The Local Democracy Reporting Service contacted Kirklees Council and asked it:
How many local authority schools re-opened on June 1? The council did not provide numbers for how many schools had re-opened.
How many children went back? The council did not confirm how many children had returned to schools in the borough.
Has the council seen schools’ risk assessments? The councilsaid it had seen schools’ risk assessments and that it was “supporting schools to carry out appropriate risk assessments”.
Have any local authority schools in Kirklees had an incident of infection? The council said in line with the national guidance, a local authority would not be notified if an individual person tested positive, regardless of whether this was in a school context. It said local authorities would, however, be aware of an outbreak (more than two cases linked by place and time) “and there have not been any outbreaks in our schools”.
What is the R rate locally in Kirklees? The council said the national approach to estimating the R rate is applied at regional level, rather than by more localised areas. Kirklees is incorporated into the regional R rate and there is no further breakdown available from this data.
Kirklees Council has been criticised for failing to follow the example of neighbouring authorities like Calderdale, which advised headteachers not to re-open.
Members of the Green and Liberal Democrat parties said it should offer more leadership on the issue.
Now unions are saying the same. The NEU has 3,500 members, both teachers and support staff, in primary and secondary schools in Kirklees.
“The council needs to be showing more leadership than they have been,” added Ms Danson.
“Kirklees Council need to be creating confidence and they have not created any confidence in the system at all.”
Ms Danson said all unions - NEU, Unison, the GMB, Unite and the Teachers’ Union NASUWT as well as the National Association of Head Teachers - had raised concerns about the free-for-all on risk assessments.
“We feel we’re banging our heads against a bit of a brick wall,” she said. “It doesn’t feel fair or consistent that catering staff have their risk assessments signed off but teachers and support staff do not.
“Our colleagues that do the risk assessments are very good and knowledgeable.
“But has the council seen them?”