Teachers blamed to distract from failures

ONCE again, teachers are being blamed by BoJo, Matt Hancock and their colleagues for the slow return to school.

Tory MP Jonathan Gullis’s recent remark to the teachers’ unions – “whether you like it or not it has come across to parents that these schools are death traps and that is not the case” – ignores entirely the role of the Tory press in creating exactly that impression.

Even more worthy of derision is Robert Halfon MP comparing risks of school attendance to that of a visit to a Primark store.

It would surprise many of us if Mr Halfon would buy clothing from Primark, but if they did so, it is hardly likely they would be spending six hours every weekday there.

Many school buildings make it impossible to bring all pupils safely back into full-time education, since they do not allow the social distancing guidelines set by the government itself to be implemented.

As has been repeatedly pointed out in the Mercury and elsewhere, the risks to pupils themselves are low, relative to the risk of others: their own families, the school staff, and their families.

Many of the latter will be far more vulnerable to serious disease than pupils.

Each head teacher has therefore to plan the return of their pupils according to the buildings they manage, the health status and age of their staff and the incidence of Covid-19 in their catchment area. All of these vary considerably.

Most importantly, however, they then have to have confidence in accurate and timely notification from NHS Track and Trace, should anyone become infected.

But how can they be confident the head at Rawlins Academy was notified two weeks after someone had taken a routine test, and that last thing at night? (“School closed for day after Covid test turns up positive”, Mercury, June 12).

Blaming teachers, therefore, enables this government to distract attention from the grave inadequacies of NHS Test and Trace.

This was promised by BoJo in April to be a “world-beating system by June 1”.

Yet we know it was rushed out prematurely nationally, so that 30 per cent of contacts are being missed – with this figure certain to rise as the population emerges from lockdown and becomes more mobile.

It is in everyone’s interest that NHS Test and Trace works effectively and quickly.

No wonder the government has to distract attention from both it and the still increasing number of unnecessary deaths from Covid-19 in the UK by blaming teachers.

Michael Tully, Leicester