Schools in disarray

sir – As a former headmaster, I am aghast at the ongoing confusion and rancour caused by Covid – extending into the very week that children are due to be going back to school.

Unions, local authorities, the Government and other leading voices are completely at odds. They all have their points, but the losers from their squabbling are schoolchildren and their parents, many of whom are desperate and beyond breaking point. The great majority of teachers want, like their colleagues in the health service, to be at work doing their essential jobs.

We have had nine months of confusion since Covid broke out in March 2020. The only way to bring this to an end is to set up a new body, the education equivalent of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, which brings together top scientists, epidemiologists and medics with key stakeholders in education, to meet weekly to thrash out a way forward.

I suggested this to the Department for Education back in March 2020. It needs to be established now, before further damage and enduring educational disadvantage occur.

Sir Anthony Seldon

Windsor, Berkshire