Social distancing is 'major barrier' to fully reopening schools in September

Senior members of Shropshire Council’s education team have said children could be told to wear face coverings on school transport if the required distance cannot be maintained, but social distancing measures will need to be eased before all children can return.

The council’s performance management scrutiny committee was told that the authority had seen higher levels of attendance at schools throughout the lockdown than other areas.

Steve Compton, principal school improvement advisor, said: “Across Shropshire we put in the provision that meant more children as a percentage of the total in Shropshire attended than nationally.”

Mr Compton said the number of vulnerable learners – those with an education, health and care plan (EHCP) or a social worker – attending school had risen significantly since the first week of lockdown.

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He said: “We can see that when schools went through that initial closure to most year groups in late March that attendance of these children was very low. Through the work of schools and the work of local authority officers those numbers of vulnerable children attending has increased significantly.

“I think way back in March we are talking around 50 children across the authority. By the end of may we are talking of around 250 to 300 children. I have looked at the data for yesterday and as of yesterday we have 423 vulnerable children back in school.”

Last week saw more than 3,500 in total attend schools across Shropshire after the government told councils to start reopening primary schools to reception and Years 1 and 6. This was an increase of more than 2,000 on the numbers that had been attending before June 1.

Mr Compton said major hurdles in the way of full reopening for many schools were the physical constraints of their buildings.

He said: “We know that across Shropshire many of our school buildings, particularly primary level, are small Victorian buildings and they bring limitations.

“We know for us to reach a point where we have all our children returning to school we need to overcome some limitations of those buildings.

“The numbers that can currently attend in Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 are limited as we try and implement social distancing.

Barrier

“We know that’s going to be a challenge going forward and, coupled with that, if we are looking to have all our children back in class in the autumn term we know that the transport system will be under increased pressure as to how we get all our children transported to school.

“In the context of the school buildings, as well as the transport, there has got to be some sort of movement on the social distancing because that is a major, major barrier to really opening up.”

Mr Compton said aspirations around fully reopening would need to be “realistic” and may need to be “managed over a longer period”.

Phil Wilson, learning and skills service manager, said with the current two-metre social distancing in place, school buses could only operate at around 25 per cent capacity. This means the maximum number of pupils allowed on a 52-seater bus is around 13.

He said this would increase to 50 per cent capacity if the required distance was reduced to one metre, but that this would still not provide enough seats for all eligible pupils.

Measures to overcome this could include school buses having to make two journeys each morning and afternoon, providers putting on extra buses, or children being required to wear masks.

Mr Wilson said there had been indications from government that face coverings may be required on home to school transport but that further clarification was awaited.

He said: “Our position would be that the measures we put in place for our schools with the separation and all those issues would mitigate the requirement for face coverings but clearly if the government guidelines require that then we will absolutely conform with that.”