The government has spent months demonising teaching unions and blaming them for blocking schools re-opening, including in June when it was actually the government’s own guidelines that prevented the further re-opening of primary schools.
This has left them in a bit of a pickle because schools are re-opening in September, the unions aren’t blocking it, there are no plans for teacher strikes, but the latest survey data from the ONS says that only 90% of parents are fairly or very likely to send their kids back. If the data is similar to back in June, better off parents are more likely to send their kids back, and more disadvantaged families are less likely.
So the government are now running a campaign aimed at parents, putting out articles across all newspapers. The Chief Medical Officers have dutifully said that schools are safe. And the responses are ‘see, schools need to reopen, our kids are being thrown under the bus’. The message is being read the wrong way. It’s being read as being targeted at teachers and unions who it is supposed are stopping schools opening, and not at parents who don’t want to send their kids back.
And this is the government’s fault. Because they have spent months creating a fake war, they have dropped the ball on a real issue - creating safer schools that parents are happy to send their kids back to.