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Boris Johnson has announced that all primary and secondary schools will have to close as of January 5, as England moves to a third national closure.
The prime minister said schools will have to offer remote learning until at least mid-February and GCSE and A-level exams face cancellation for a second year.
Johnson said the new measures were necessary: ”because we have to do everything we can to stop the spread of the disease.”
Only vulnerable children and children of key workers will be able to attend schools for face-to-face learning, and early childhood settings, such as day care centers, will remain accessible.
The Prime Minister said he understood the “anguish” that the new measures will cause to millions of parents and students, and assured that until now the Government was doing “everything in our power to keep schools open.”
He added: “We know how important each day in education is for the life chances of children.”
Those eligible for free school meals will continue to receive them during the closings, and more devices will be distributed to aid remote learning, according to Johnson.
The government had insisted that schools would remain open for just one day before the new measures were announced, assuring parents that it was “safe” to send their children back for the start of the term on January 4.
But the move sparked a backlash from four national teaching unions, who called for the observed delay in London to be applied to all schools in England amid concerns that the new strain of Covid-19 poses a threat to teachers.
Anne Longfield, England’s commissioner for children, has called for teachers to get vaccinated “as a priority.”
What do the levels mean for schools?
The new lockdown measures mean that the entire country will be subject to the same stricter measures, including closing all schools, which means that the tier system is not currently in effect.
All schools had been ordered to draw up plans to ensure that children continue to receive education even if they have to stay at home.
Johnson said of the school closure announcement: “I want to emphasize that the problem is not that schools are not safe for children.”
“The problem is, however, schools can act as transmission vectors, causing the virus to spread between homes.”
Read more about the tier system above:
When will high schools reopen?
All schools will be closed until mid-February, with the possibility of these measures being extended further.
This means that most high school students will stay home until at least the February semester.
How will testing work in schools?
The Government had previously established a plan for each secondary school to screen as many students and staff as possible when they reopened.
It is not yet clear whether schools will still need to mass test students after the latest school closings have ended.
The plans called for the secondary schools to hire 40,000 volunteers to conduct mass tests on their students, according to government documents.
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