Schools: Brighton and Hove council orders primary schools to close

The Brighton and Hove City Council has advised primary schools to delay reopening and teach remotely until January 18 due to rising Covid-19 rates.

It comes after one of the UK’s leading teachers unions said it had taken legal action against the government over plans to reopen schools next week.

All London primary schools will teach remotely starting Monday after a government U-turn. Initially, only a few districts of the capital were included in the list, as well as some schools in Essex, Kent, East Sussex and Milton Keynes.

Requests have been made for elementary schools across the country to remain closed when the period begins amid a nationwide surge in Covid-19 cases.

Brighton and Hove Councilor Hannah Clare, Chairperson of the Children, Youth and Skills Committee, said: ‘As a council, we want all schools to be fully open. However, we must keep children, school personnel, and the wider community as safe as possible.

Therefore, Cllr Phélim Mac Cafferty, as Council Leader, has written today to Gavin Williamson, Secretary of State for Education, asking him to include Brighton & Hove Elementary Schools on the list of schools that have moved to learning from distance.

“Because of this belief, we have also written to our city’s elementary schools to inform them that we believe they should move to distance learning until Monday, January 18.”

Cllr Clare said the rate in Brighton and Hove has increased by more than 500% since it came out of the lockdown in early December and is currently 388 per 100,000 residents.

He said there are early signs that the increase continues and that the city will approach rates of about 500 per 100,000 in the coming days.

“This rapid increase is reflected in the rates for our children and youth. The pattern of the city for all ages is similar to that seen previously in the urban areas of Kent and East Sussex, ”he said.

“We must therefore do this to protect our NHS from being overwhelmed and to ensure that our city’s children, school personnel and the wider community are kept as safe as possible.”

Cllr Clare has apologized to parents for the last minute announcement, which comes just two days before face-to-face learning began in most elementary schools.

“The government has left us to make this decision that it is not brave enough to face and we hope to see a change of mind from them for elementary schools throughout the southeast,” he said.

The government was accused of creating ‘chaos’ for parents after reversing its decision to open some primary schools in London at the last minute.

While the Secretary of Education’s move has been welcomed as the ‘right decision’, he has been accused of another awkward U-turn just days after telling many schools to prepare to open.

Despite this, the unions are calling for the decision to be applied nationally until the coronavirus crisis is under control.

In a statement, the National Association of Heads of Teachers (NAHT) said: “We call on the government to lift people in schools from the physical harm caused by the current progress of the disease.”

He added that he has “initiated the preliminary procedures in the legal proceedings against the Department of Education.”

The NAHT has said it plans to advise its members not to take any action against staff who refuse to work because they do not feel safe.

Together with the Association of School and University Leaders, the union has directed lawyers to write to the government, giving it until the end of Monday to provide any scientific data or information that suggests it is safe to go back to school.

NAHT Assistant Secretary General Paul Whiteman said: “We have asked the government to share the evidence justifying the distinctions made between elementary and secondary schools, the geographic distinctions they have made, and the evidence justifying the mandatory introduction of massive tests “.

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