Prime minister Boris Johnson has announced Britain’s roadmap for exiting lockdown, including plans for students to return to classrooms. Annaleece has spoken to teachers to get an insight into how they’re feeling about the news.
On the 22nd of February, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the step-by-step roadmap plan that the government is looking to follow for easing lockdown restrictions.
One of the first steps of the plan is the return of face-to-face teaching for all schools in the UK. Mr. Johnson announced the full plan to MPs earlier that day.
“Classrooms are the best places for our young people to be,” the Prime Minister told MPs.
However, people have spoken about their concerns over schools being opened too soon once again, in fear of the same result when schools were reopened back in September. This gave the public, but mostly students, a sense of normality; they were able to return or begin their studies with the restrictions of social distancing and compulsory mask-wearing. Now, the government’s announcements of the return of students to physical classrooms and face-to-face teaching on the 8th March has caused panic for a lot of teaching staff.
Speaking to several teachers from around the country who work in both schools and sixth form colleges, they have discussed how their workplace was planning to return to face-to-face teaching.
One teacher said, “Schools will be using government guidance to achieve a staggered return and are trying their best to balance student and staff welfare.”
In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister stated that all students would return to physical classrooms come March. This announcement caused a lot of panic amongst students, parents, and teaching staff. However, it appears that schools and colleges have been advised to enforce a safe system which will allow all students to receive some face-to-face teaching – but not fully.
“Hopefully, everyone can get some positives from the situation.”
Most recently, the government have been criticised for not making teachers and school, college, and university staff a priority for receiving the vaccine. It has been an on-going request from all students, parents, and teachers themselves; the public believes that teaching staff should be a part of the high priority tier list.
Most significant is the fear that teachers are surrounded by hundreds of students per week which you would assume would increase their risk of being infected. Especially for older or more vulnerable teaching staff who have an additional risk of getting seriously ill if they catch the virus.
Matt Hancock and Jonathan Van-Tam
Most recently, Health Secretary Matt Hancock appeared on Ridge on Sunday to dismiss the public’s demand for teachers to receive their Coronavirus vaccine jab before returning to teaching in school buildings. He said, “there isn’t strong evidence that teachers are more likely to catch COVID than any other group.”
Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer, spoke with SkyNews and expressed the government’s priority to vaccinate those who are likely to die from the virus if they catch it: “it is clear there is no excess mortality overall in teachers.”
Teachers respond
Speaking with a teaching assistant, she discussed her agitation of the full return of all schools: “it will still be quite chaotic.”
One sixth-form teacher said, “there is certainly a [higher] risk for teachers, particularly those who are not healthy and older.” They also told me that “the problem with [saying] that schools do not transmit the virus anymore is that the judgements are often based on faulty data.”
Another teacher said, “I think this claim is unfounded” and “it’s logical to suggest that when [teaching] groups of children [every day] the likelihood of it spreading is high.”
Safety measures in schools and colleges
Other members of the public are reading this new guidance from the government and are assuming that all schools and colleges are entirely safe. They are attempting to secure immaculate safety measures in their schools but that is never going to be possible – especially with some schools having over 1000 students.
Ashleigh, a singing teacher, summed up the stresses that parents of young children have faced in each lockdown: “home-schooling for primary aged children has been quite stressful and time-consuming for parents.”
For a lot of parents, parental stress is at an all-time high, with some parents having to juggle worries over money, job loss, home loss, and helping their children with virtual teaching too.
“The vaccination programme will also help manage [the infection rate], so hopefully we won’t see numbers as high as in the past.”
How safe are schools and colleges?
I asked the teachers whether they felt their workplace had been subject to infection between teaching staff. One told me, “not that I am aware of [with close colleagues], however, I do know some their relatives have [caught the virus].”
Ashleigh said that as a private singing teacher, the secondary school she works at has outlined how testing will work for students. “I am pleased that the testing is taking place [but] they can’t make it compulsory [so] teachers’ health is still at risk.”
Another education faculty member said there is the difficulty of regulating and enforcing mask-wearing in their school. “[Some students are] being verbally abusive when you politely ask them to wear a mask.” With hundreds of students to watch over every day, teachers are having to actively ensure everyone is following the safety rules to protect not only themselves but also other students.
Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?
After speaking with teaching staff, it is understood that rapid testing of students will not be compulsory but will be largely encouraged by schools and colleges. Although understandable due to the demand for rapid testing kits at the moment, it highlights the question of how safe reopening schools really is. Is this really the best course of action as we are finally ‘flattening the curve’ of infection?
However, this is a positive step towards regaining normality for everyone. What people need after months of being stuck inside their homes is something to look forward to. For students all across the country, this is it. Finally, they are been given the green light to return and see friends again. For everyone’s sake, we can only hope that the government do not make these decisions lightly and take every precaution to prevent yet another lockdown.
Annaleece Longmore
Featured image courtesy Andy Falconer via Unplash. Image license can be found here. No changes have been made to this image.