Vested interest alert – yes I’m claiming that word back – I come from a family of school staff, teachers, TAs, school governors. The dedication and hard work of all school staff, caretakers, cleaners, cooks, governors have shown for the safety, education, well-being, in many instances feeding, their pupils throughout this crisis has been extraordinary.
I am totally dismayed at any criticism. Staff have the well being and safety of their pupils at their very heart. Their views on the total opening of schools and the views of their representatives have to be totally respected. The issue is complex. In Liverpool, the elected City Mayor has chosen not to open schools on June 1st as a safe-guarding issue as this wonderful city is still reeling from a high rate of infection. Questions are being asked as to why Mayor Joe Anderson has taken this stance when schools in Denmark, led by our sister party, are opening. Joe has never said Liverpool can’t open its schools, he has said when it’s safe to do so and only then. Each local authority has its own characteristics, not only in terms of levels of this dreadful pandemic, but the physical nature and age of its school buildings, levels of deprivation, staffing, the amount of public funding available and not available, the differing needs of its pupils. Country by country comparison is far too simplistic. This is an educational, health and societal issue.
We all want all our children back in school and we are most worried about our most vulnerable, where home-schooling in a cramped flat with no outdoor space is stretching our children’s educational and physical and mental health well-being. I have family members with differing views – what I do know is that they are taking decisions based on local circumstances and always with the education and health of their pupils and staff foremost in their thinking. What is clear is that our health and education services, so starved of resources in this dangerous and false economy of austerity, especially in cities like Liverpool, have to be funded properly based on demographic need. I sincerely hope this Government remembers that but I fear not. Is it safe to open schools to children other than those of key workers or classed as vulnerable? There will always be risk – the question is how to reduce it. We must now learn from other countries – transmission from children to adults, children returning to schools in Italy presenting with multisystem inflammatory syndrome weeks after exposure.
The UK did not have community testing, contact tracing and isolation early. Surely the question is are schools safe enough to open? Which means we need information and monitoring at a local level, the amount of new cases locally and rates of transmission. Local data should be driving policy and assuming a date for the entire country is ideologically rather than data driven. We need to get children back into education, but a locally managed data driven approach has to be the only way. Prioritising testing over a date. Listening to our teaching staff and our unions.
For Liverpool in present circumstances – I’m with Joe.
Theresa Griffin Labour MEP North West 2014-2020
Member SHA