Why year 6?

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I have a feeling that as restrictions ease and people take things into their own hands infection rates will rise again so none of this will happen anyway but assuming the alert levels are correct for "the plan" to be implemented, why are yr6 being prioritised?

Apart from some transition stuff they'd be doing mostly fun activities, rather than formal education next half term anyway? Maybe that's the reason to prioritise them, I don't know?

Also, why only primaries to begin with? Phasing things without includjng secondaries at all initially leaves secondaries (mostly) empty unnecessarily? I.e. if it's safe for yr R and yr1 to start a phased return why not also yr10? (or another yr in secondary)

Have yr 6 been chosen to give them a chance to say goodbye to their school, teachers and friends? Whoever goes back it’s always going to be a risk. My grand daughter is in yr3 and is desperate to go back to school. She will be heartbroken to learn she isn’t going back till September.

I think it’s probably primaries for a number of reasons. E.g pupils usually live locally so can walk there, many secondary pupils have to get a bus (either school or public), many secondary age pupils could be left at home while parents go to work while primary age couldn’t, many secondary age pupils can manage their work at home without much parental input while many primary age children cannot. Also, a young ‘vulnerable’ child like a 5 year old is possibly more at risk than a secondary age ‘vulnerable’ child (obviously there are exceptions) so they really need to be in school. I think they’ve said year 6 for transition reasons, but dh is a primary dh and he said he’d prefer to have year 5 in, I suppose in the same way that secondary schools want years 10 and 12 back.

Yr10 (and secondary pupils generally) are:

• More at risk of the virus
• More likely to need to take public transport to school
• Able (in theory) to work alone/be home alone whilst parents work

The opposite applies to reception/year 1.
Year 6 is an anomoly from those points of view, but it's obviously felt 'transition' and some sort of closure is important for them.