Teacher’s union warns of dangers of opening schools too soon

By Sian Bayley, Local Democracy Reporter

 A teacher’s union has warned against schools reopening too soon, saying “we do not think we are anywhere near” the point it is safe to do so.

The secretary of the Wandsworth branch of the National Education Union, and sixth form history teacher, Andrew Stone, said the large majority of members are “very concerned” about a “premature” move to fully reopen schools.

“There are clearly great difficulties in enforcing social distancing even if you do have a smaller number of students, and long-standing problems with overcrowded classrooms and things like that,” he said.

“To some extent they can be mitigated if you only have half the students in at one time, but when it comes to playtimes, how do you manage keeping students two metres apart, for example? There are all sorts of issues which people need to bear in mind.

“In short we don’t want student and staff health and well-being to be sacrificed for the sake of profits or corporate interests that are saying that the priority is to get business up and running again.”

The National Education Union has written to the Prime Minister, asking him to end speculation on schools reopening and seeking assurances about the basis on which a proposal to reopen schools will be made.

The petition has more than 200,000 signatures.

The local Wandsworth branch is also hoping to send a copy to the council’s cabinet member for education, Will Sweet.

Mr Stone said there also needs to be “more recognition” in the media of the work teachers are doing during lockdown.

“Of course many schools are still open to provide care for the children of key workers, and staff are working on rota within those schools,” he said.

“But staff are also working at home remotely, many are working very long hours whilst struggling with childcare, struggling with technology they may not be familiar with, but working very hard to provide support as well as education for their students.”

He said many teachers had raised concerns about educational inequality.

“There’s a danger that the educational inequality that pre-existed the lockdown could be exacerbated, and I know our members have that in mind,” he said.

Speaking about his own experience he said: “Most students have been quite responsible in logging on and responding, but you always have to have in mind that some may not have laptops themselves.

“They might be sharing resources amongst several siblings, so it’s a bit difficult to enforce expectations that you might be able to enforce in the classroom when you can’t be sure about the context in which people are coming to work remotely.”