Schools will have to open to end the lockdown, but will do so in a "phased manner"

No one is certain when schools will be reopening, but with each passing day it seems more probable that pupils will not be returning to classes until September of this year. Even then it is likely that there will be stringent social distancing practices put in place to reduce the risk of infection. It is possible that class sizes will be reduced to permit desks to be spread out, but even this brings its own problems, as more teachers will be needed to teach each lesson, and some schools may not have enough rooms to accommodate numerous small lessons taking place at once.

The education secretary Gavin Williamson has announced that schools will open in a `phased manner.` Speaking to the Education Select committee this week he said that schools will be given `as much notice as possible,` enabling them to fully prepare. A phased manner seems to mean that some year groups may return to school before others. Mr Williamson told MP`s that `All schools returning on day one with a full complement of pupils would not be realistic.`

Having being told we have now passed the peak of this pandemic, there is a growing impetus to partially lift the lockdown, in order to enable people to go back to work. With most parents at home looking after their children, the schools will have to reopen, at least to some degree, before the workforce, and the economy, can get back on track.

The General Secretary Geoff Barton has said the 1st of June is the earliest `realistic` date that schools will be able to open. This corresponds to the last half term before the summer holiday. I myself suspect that there simply isn`t enough time to get everything in place, as schools will have to decide which pupils will be attending, provide adequate social distancing procedures in communal areas and classrooms, along with assessing which parts of the syllabus they will teaching.

With GCSE and A-Levels having being postponed, should returning year 11 and 13 pupils reprise topics from the start of academic year? Will the exam syllabus for next year be different in any substantial way? What about pupils who have fallen behind during the period of lockdown? Many children from disadvantaged families do not have access to a computer, and may have been unable to keep up with the work assigned during the closure.

Wayne Norrie, the head of an academy trust working with schools in disadvantaged areas has said `in our schools, 60% to 70% of children wouldn`t have laptops.` This will obviously have impeded their learning over the last few weeks. `Coronavirus has revealed the scale of the digital divide.`

All schools have been following procedures to ensure their pupils are still learning while not in school. Teachers are creating online resources, and setting work for their pupils to complete. Despite this, Ofsted has warned that a prolonged period of homeschooling will increase the performance gap between the low and high achievers, and that the lockdown will have the most detrimental effects on `the poorest, the lowest-achieving academically and the least-motivated children.`

During a recent online session with the select committee the education secretary Gavin Williamson acknowledged that pupils` learning is being disrupted by the lockdown, saying that `every child is going to have suffered from not being in school.` It was during this conference that Mr Williamson declared that the return would be a staged one, and that schools would be given sufficient time to prepare.

`When we bring schools back - and I think everyone wants to see schools returning - they will return in a phased manner,` said Mr Williamson, as all pupils going back at once would not be `realistic or practical`.

Education Minister Kirsty Williams has also supported a `phased approach` to reopening schools, while Mary Bousted, joint leader of the National Education Union expressed concern for the health of returning teachers

`All staff with underlying health conditions or who are vulnerable will need to be at home so timetables will be tricky and the full curriculum simply impossible,` said Dr Bousted.`

`We will need an extended, flexible recovery plan, and no one should be under any illusion that there is some catch-up magic bullet.`

It`s clear that lifting the lockdown is going to be more difficult than its implementation. Schools have a vitally important role in our long path to normality - but their reopening must be effected in a careful and considered manner.