Parents in Sefton are being advised that schools in the borough which are scheduled to reopen this week will do so, unless they are contacted directly by their child’s school and told differently.
Primary schools, secondary schools and colleges in Southport, Formby, Bootle and across Sefton are due to reopen for the new Spring Term this Monday (January 4) or Tuesday (January 5).
Questions have been raised over whether this would still happen, with teaching unions calling for schools across the UK to remain closed due to rising Covid-19 numbers nationally.
A Sefton Council spokesperson said: “With less than 24 hours to go, we are not asking schools and parents to change their plans.
“As a Tier 3 area which has a lower infection rate than others, the schools that are scheduled to reopen this week should do so, including primary and special schools as well as secondary schools for vulnerable and key worker children.
“We will work with school leaders and teams to ensure risk assessments are reviewed and updated if necessary, and shared with staff.
“We recognise the concerns of some staff and where this leads to individual school closure, we will work with and support schools if this happens.
“At this stage less than 24 hours before school starts this is hard to predict and we will keep this under constant review and monitor staff and pupil attendance.
“Fines for non-attendance are always a last resort and only when parents have not worked with the school around their specific circumstances.
“Our Aintree, Bootle and Southport SMART test sites are open for people who don’t have symptoms 9am to 6pm every day and no appointments needed.”
Parents in Liverpool are also being advised that schools in the city scheduled to reopen this coming week will do so, unless they are contacted directly by their child’s school and told differently.
In a joint statement, Cabinet member for education, Cllr Barbara Murray, and Director of Children and Young People Services Steve Reddy said: “We recognise there is a balance between controlling the virus and the damage to child wellbeing, mental health and the impact of even more lost learning.
“With less than 24 hours to go, we are not asking schools and parents to change their plans.”
National Education Union boss Kevin Courtney says children should not be in classrooms for the first two weeks of January.
He said Coronavirus was being spread rapidly in schools, which then has led to families and communities suffering higher infections.
Mr Courtney said: “There is scientific concern that the new variant might be more prevalent amongst younger people than the previous variants.”
He said teachers have a legal right to protect their health and work in safe conditions.
Ofsted Chief inspector Amanda Spielman meanwhile said today that school closures should be kept to the ‘absolute minimum’, revealing that the first lockdown disrupted children’s learning and wider development.
The Ofsted boss wrote: “There is a real consensus that schools should be the last places to close and the first to re-open, and having argued for this since last spring, I welcome it. Because it is increasingly clear that children’s lives can’t just be put on hold while we wait for vaccination programmes to take effect, and for waves of infection to subside.
‘We cannot furlough young people’s learning or their wider development. The longer the pandemic continues, the more true this is.’
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