Webchat with Vicky Ford, Minister for Children, Wednesday 26 August at 11am

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We're pleased to announce a webchat about COVID-19 and schools, colleges, nurseries and childminders with Vicky Ford, Conservative MP for Chelmsford and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families, at 11am on Wednesday 26 August.

The government is planning for all pupils to return to school full-time from the beginning of the autumn term. Vicky will be coming along to give us the government’s response to your concerns and questions.

Vicky was elected MP for Chelmsford in 2017, and has been Minister for Children since February 2020. Before joining Parliament she was an MEP for the East of England constituency in the European Parliament. In a previous life she worked in finance.

Please join us here on Wednesday at 11am. If you can’t join us on the day, please post up your question in advance.

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question per user, follow-ups only if there’s time and most questions have been answered, and please keep it civil. Also if one topic is dominating a thread, mods might request that people don't continue to post what's effectively the same question or point. (We may suspend the accounts of anyone who continues after we've posted to ask people to stop, so please take note.) Rest assured we will ALWAYS let the guest know that it's an area of concern to multiple users and will encourage them to engage with those questions.

Many thanks,
MNHQ

Hello Vicky, thanks for doing this webchat.

I think we've all learned that managing COVID is about tradeoffs. At the moment Gavin Williamson is saying that schools will be a top priority, which is a relief, but what is the plan if the R rate increases to dangerous levels?

Presumably there will have to be difficult decisions taken about closing other sectors of the economy or cracking down on social gatherings so that schools can stay open.

Does the government already know what it's prepared to do to keep schools open, in concrete terms? And if so can you share that with the public?

All of the data being used to insist schools are “safe” is based on schools being open with social distancing.

How can this data be used to predict what will happen in schools with no social distancing?

Berlin, Scotland, Victoria, Israel etc have all shown that opening without distancing caused a far higher rate of outbreaks than we saw with distancing.

The WHO advised 1m distancing in schools.

Sweden and Denmark, who opened successfully, have distancing.

Why aren’t we doing this?

Not only would it ensure schools opened safely, it would mean they stayed open. Less chaos and disruption and isolating for 14 days on and off all winter.

Hi Vicky, I rather think I remember you from village preschool committee days .

I should use this space to ask a serious educational question, but as the final child has just left school, I don’t have one handy. So I’ll just ask whether you and the family are well?

May be a PM?!

Important Question Please

I am aware of an Independent School planning an indoor (unmasked) walk in off the street Open Day this Autumn. Normal no of attendees over the 2 hour period I would estimate 200 ish possibly more.

Surely this contravenes the 30 limit for mass gatherings at present. I really think it’s irresponsible. Nothing in Gov Guidance I can see. Is this something that needs attention please before adding to Community Transmission.

The Government has said that schools will be open full time. But my daughter's (state) sixth form plan to offer blended learning with just 12 hours of face to face lessons one week, followed by 12 hours online lessons the next week. Is this what the government intended for sixth forms and does the government have any plans to require sixth form colleges to offer face to face teaching in the same way as sixth forms within schools do?

Why hasn't the government taken control of the curriculum next year:
A few top teachers from each year group do all topic and lesson plans for EVERY school to follow. So all schools are covering the same work at the same time.
All lessons are available online - filmed by a few top teachers.
Any school needs to shut due to covid - the kids swap over straight away to online learning. All sorted out already. So no school is providing less than others because the government have made it more equal.

Jesus wept, good luck with all that
. Should secondary age have to wear masks?

As a parent, one of my biggest worries about returning to school is parents finding comfort in the normal and no longer following measures... particularly parents in the school playground (of which I am one).

Would mandating that primary school parents wear masks at pick up and drop off act as a physical reminder the virus is very much a risk, prevent clusters forming and chatting (as they will do), and help the flow move faster into/out of the waiting areas? Classroom-bubbles would be undermined by parents socialising at pick up with parents from other years/classes.

Could you explain why England isn't following the Scottish and Welsh in absolving children (I think their cut off is under-twelves) from social distancing? Has the government considered the impact of social distancing children from each other on children's emotional & social well-being?

More a comment than a question. As a Nurse it seems bonkers that whilst we are wearing mask, apron, goggles and gloves to give childhood vaccinations because we are within 1 meter and may get contaminated with body fluids why aren’t nurses and infant school teachers required to do the same. Then all other teachers should at least wear masks as should the children.
Next comment, for goodness sake think a bit more creatively and stop trying to please people. Let the good come out of this and new ideas rather than hanging onto same old same old. One idea I had was to move all under 7,s out of school to halls etc. Staff with early years staff. Forget about reading and writing but concentrate on play , language and school readiness, like in Scandinavia. Loads of out door education. Now the primary schools are big enough to have classes of 15 but still get them out doors for most of the day. Secondary run 2 shifts 8 till 1 pm years 7- 9 and2 pm till 6 for years 10-13 still with as much time outside as possible. Please think creatively. It’s not as if we are breaking a perfect system

Why does the English not follow WHO guidance? For example that secondary school children should wear masks when moving around schools. Why do we always seem to be several months behind the latest science, when we've seen since the start of the pandemic that that's not a good place to be?

Can ministers please THINK about next years year 11 and 13. There needs to be measures in place to stop them being disadvantaged by the learning loss so far, and in the future when COVID runs rampant through schools

Why does the current government guidance say that parents / carers do not have to provide evidence of a negative Covid test before a child with symptoms can return to school? I am not confident that test, track and trace is robust enough to stop people from gaming the system and knowingly sending positive cases back into school so the family can avoid isolating.

Some fantastic questions that have already been asked, particularly @Johnny1963 's question about SEND provision and I look forward to this extremely important question being answered in full.

My question is as follows: What are your contingency plans for a Second Wave and/or further lockdowns in respect of Education and Children's Services? Just one example are that Speech and Language Therapy services have ceased for many children and families and for many are still completely unavailable? Would it not make sense to set up a robust virtual service so people can continue to access initial SALT assessments/continue Speech and Language sessions, rather than have potential delays of up to a year? Furthermore, virtual sessions are available via Private therapists, but not on the NHS, which again means families that are unable to afford private therapies will end up missing out. With the threat of Winter Flu as well as Covid-19 in circulation, there does need to be something set up urgently so children do not continue to miss out on these vital therapies and services and are then subsequently delayed for years to come. I look forward to your response!

Hi Vicky
I am a psychologist and know from working with children with anxiety over the years that a key strategy is to start where the young person is and move them forward in small steps that they can cope with. We know that whilst many children will be delighted to get straight back into school, many of our students may have suffered bereavement, retreated socially, become withdrawn etc. This is especially so for those who found education difficult before, but may include many who did not.

We in my profession are concerned at the messaging from number 10 that all children must be back in education, that families will be fined etc goes directly against the advice we have been giving schools to be flexible, be nurturing, take it slowly where this is necessary etc. Our concern is that there will be a spike in anxiety based school non-attendance if schools come in with a very strict attendance message immediately and don't take account of individuals' circumstances.

You may be familiar with the Recovery Curriculum (www.thinkingmatters.com/news/the-recovery-curriculum-essential-reading-listening), can you assure us that the government is aware of the range of needs likely to present in youngsters in September, and therefore is happy for schools to adopt a range of flexible and responsive approaches during the first term, even in youngsters who prior to covid shutdown may not have had a recognised and labelled SEN need?

Has the government commissioned any advice for schools from expert organisations about the emotional and psychological impact of lockdown, mask wearing, social distancing on children of different ages?
Will the government ensure that schools have access to informed advice from organisations properly qualified in child development, psychology and education as opposed to the motley selection of unqualified political lobby groups that the DfE have to date been recommending to schools to influence practice in pastoral care, school systems, emotional wellbeing etc ?

I would like an answer to Motherofgreyhounds post please.

Why are we being told it's safe for our children to return to school, in fact ordered to send our children back to school, when the evidence says otherwise? Why is the government not telling schools to keep our children safer, they can have smaller class sizes and better ventilation as advised by the WHO, Unicef and Independent Sage.

I do not feel it is safe to send my 7 year old back to a class which the school has increased in numbers from 18 pupils to 30 pupils and have not given a reasonable explanation for this ludicrous decision. My employer is insisting we can continue to work from home, and if we're in work we have to observe the 2m social distancing rule. And please don't insult my intelligence by saying children don't get covid, it's who they pass it on to and then kill that's the concern for us.

Hi Vicky, thank you for joining us today.

I work in a secondary school and have children entering year 11 and Year 13 in September.
I would feel a lot safer going back if we all wore masks. I see Scotland have put this in place.
I would also want to know if the grading system would be teacher assessed next Summer if the exams don’t go ahead?
I’m not sure if you’ll get to me after all these questions but thank you anyway. 💐

My question is about staggered pick up times.

Many schools are introducing this to help avoid congestion, but if you have multiple children in one school, this means lots of parents waiting around for the other child which defeats the object. In my own situation I'll be picking one up at 3, and then waiting until 3:50 for the other.

Will schools be given advice on how to manage this please to keep everyone safe?

Do you have sympathy for Gavin Williamson and the challenges presented by his job?

In the event of school closures either due to local lockdown/national lockdown/confirmed cases, will there be a standarised policy for the quality of homeschooling that we should expect from schools? It is apparent from the first lockdown that there was a huge disparity between shcools (primary in our case) with some schools offering a lot and others offering very little. It would be reassuring to know that in any future closures, all schools would have to offer the same level of support.

I would like to know what you understand by full-time education. Ds will be going into Y13 when his FE college reopens. They are providing 2 hours per week per subject f2f on site when term begins, ie 6 hours a week. I don't call this full-time.

We are already really worried about the A level exams, given that so much teaching has been missed.

Good morning and thank you very much for all your questions. This is Vicky. I understand there will be many queries and some concerns around children returning to school full time from next week and I look forward to answering as many of them as possible and providing any reassurances where I can on this - and links to where you can get further detail. Please bear with me as this is only the second time I have done this.