Reasons why schools should reopen

Pupils have been massively hit by the loss of half a year in education. And the economy hasn’t got a hope of recovering unless workers are released from the requirement to school their youngsters. Let the professionals get back to it.

All the evidence suggests that the schools which stayed open have not been the source of infection some feared. There are risks associated with working with children, but there is no evidence that catching this virus is one of them. In countries where schools have stayed open, or have reopened, new outbreaks haven’t happened.

Unfortunately, the teaching unions have failed to show leadership by taking control of the situation, working towards a sensible return to the classroom.

Now, emboldened by the Government’s timid handling of the obstructive “100 reasons why it’s too dangerous to teach” campaign they launched in May, they are asserting schools won’t be ready by September. Hence their call for local decision making on whether schools open, no doubt banking on support from some anti-government local authorities, increasingly the last redoubt for the Labour Party.

Many teachers want to return to their schools. Individual schools are making the best of it without reference to specific red lines but doing what appears to be most practicable. A good deal of negotiation has been taking place between union school groups and management over risk assessments, which should have been happening from the start.

Teachers should speak up and demand an end to the “can’t do” nonsense from organisations claiming to represent them. And we, the people of this country, must support them by asserting the interests of children as a priority.

It is a matter of national shame that unions who campaigned so long and so proudly for free, national education for all, are repudiating this principle, a benchmark of a modern, progressive society.

Will Podmore

Clavering Road, Wanstead