Fearful st aff turn away children of key workers

TEACHERS are asking key workers to keep their children off school if they can.

School staff who are worried about catching the virus if classes are too full have challenged parents who are still sending their children in because they work in essential jobs.

Key workers – as designated by the Government – are permitted to send their children to school as normal during lockdown.

But some schools have been asking key workers whether they could keep their children at home. Early-years schools are operating as normal.

One father from Cheshire said: ‘My partner and I are both key workers and I’m having to look after a six and three- year- old at home whilst working because the school won’t take them.’ A human rights solicitor from Newcastle, who has key-worker status, said her children’s school refused to take them because her husband was not a key worker.

It comes after teaching unions expressed concern that the official definition of a key worker had become too broad, letting more people send their children to class than during the first lockdown.

Figures from Teacher Tapp – an app that conducts teacher surveys – reveal that a third of primary schools had at least 20 per cent of pupils in school this month. One in six primary schools still have 30 per cent of pupils attending school.

Last March, in the first lockdown, only 1 in 100 schools had more than 20 per cent on any given day.