Teachers are set to REFUSE to go back to school: Union will tell its members to stay at home

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Teachers are set to refuse to go back to school under plans from the UK’s biggest teaching union to tell its members to stay at home.

It is understood that the National Education Union (NEU) is planning to tell teachers not to go back to classrooms next week due to Covid-19 concerns, reports The Observer. 

The National Association of Headteachers (NAHT) is also preparing to advise headteachers not to take action against employees who decline to return to work.

The caution comes amid warnings that the mass testing plan to get classes running again is in ‘chaos’ and demands for all primaries and secondaries to be closed like in London.

Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the NEU which has more than 450,000 members, called for all primary and secondary schools to be closed to allow a mass-testing system to be set up and led by public health bodies. 

The NEU stated that their Executive was meeting today after calling for all schools across the country to be closed for the start of the new term.  

It follows Gavin Williamson being accused of making two U-turns this week, after firstly releasing a list of London primary schools in ‘hotspots’ that would stay shut for two weeks after the start of term and then closing all primaries in the city. 

Kevin Courtney, the NEU’s joint general secretary, said: ‘We think we should follow the science. We think that everybody in our country should follow the science.

‘We’re confident we’re speaking for society, that the government just isn’t taking care of us.’ 

Dr Bousted told the BBC’s Today Programme: ‘In secondary schools for 1,000 pupils you will need about 21 volunteers to do this testing as teachers can’t do it and the support staff can’t do it because they will be teaching and supporting children’s learning.’

Referring to school closures, she added: ‘It is completely unacceptable that we keep having these U-turns, these last-minute decisions, where parents don’t know where they are, where teachers and school staff just don’t know where they are.

‘The only other thing I would have to say is we don’t see this happening in Wales, Northern Ireland or Scotland – we don’t see these U-turns, these furious reversals in policy and that makes for a much calmer environment for both teachers and education professionals.’ 

Dr Bousted also explained how pupils in secondary schools are put together in year group bubbles of up to 240 with no social distancing, leading to the transmission of the virus. 

Dave Lee-Allan, a headteacher in Suffolk, expressed his frustration that teachers were not being prioritised for Covid-19 vaccines. 

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘It seems highly frustrating to me that we’re constantly being told by the Government that keeping children in school is a national priority and that we are key workers.

‘Yet apparently we don’t qualify, along with other key workers, to get early access to the vaccine.

‘It just seems another common-sense decision that could help belay the fears and increase the safety of staff, and this is in primary and secondary.’ 

Meanwhile Sam Williamson, a headteacher in Bristol, told BBC Breakfast her secondary school was prepared for the rollout of mass testing as supplies are due to arrive on Monday, after senior staff had ‘three or four’ days off for Christmas.

She said: ‘The basic plan is in place and we will actually be ready to go as long as tests arrive on time and we’ve got enough volunteers which we think we have.’

Ms Williamson said her school’s plan would be to start testing Years 11 and 14 on Thursday and Friday of the following week.

Asked about sourcing volunteers, she continued: ‘We actually put messages out to our school community before we broke up for the break, we’re very lucky that we’ve got quite a number of part-time members of teaching staff and part-time members of pastoral staff, most of whom have come forward and offered additional days, so they’re already DBS checked so that puts us in quite a fortunate position to be able to meet that need.

‘We’ve also had some ex-members of staff come forward who will need to be DBS checked but are willing and able to come and join us.’ 

It comes after Dr Bousted also slammed the government’s ‘recklessness’ in looking out for teachers and children’s health and branded it ‘inexplicable’.   

The National Education Union tweeted today: ‘Our Executive is meeting this morning and we will announce new guidance shortly afterwards.    

‘Over 10,000 members have registered for our Zoom briefings this weekend and tomorrow morning’s 11am briefing will be live streamed on social media. #MakeSchoolsSafe #ProtectCommunities.’

The NEU added: ‘We must #MakeSchoolsSafe so we can #protectcommunities. Members please register for our emergency briefings and tomorrow’s will be live streamed on social media. We will be announcing the decision of the Executive later.’ 

It comes as school face difficulties over setting up mass-testing which includes finding volunteers after Christmas. 

In a bid to prepare mass-testing, schools are converting art studios, sports halls and setting up marquees in playgrounds which are potentially set to be manned by alumni volunteers, according to The Times.  

The Department for Education has told all secondary schools in England to focus on setting up lateral flow testing which pupils are expected to take themselves overseen by volunteers. 

In a lateral flow test, fluid is taken in a swab of the nose or the throat and applied to a piece of absorbent paper that will change colour to indicate whether or not the virus is present, taking just 15 to 30 minutes to produce a result.  

The situation is not expected to become clear until the next review date of January 13.  

Gavin Williamson had this week released a list of London primary schools in coronavirus ‘hotspots’ that would stay shut for two weeks after the start of term next week.

The list did not include areas where Covid rates are high such as Haringey whose leaders said they would defy the government and support schools that decided to close.   

Under the Government’s initial plan, schools in the City of London and Kingston were set to reopen but those in 22 other London boroughs would have remained closed.

The leaders of Camden, Islington, Greenwich, Haringey, Harrow, Hackney and Lewisham boroughs, and the City of London, said in a letter to the Education Secretary: ‘We ask in the strongest terms that your recommendation is urgently reviewed and our primary schools are added to the list of those advised to move learning online.’

The action prompted an emergency Cabinet Office meeting today where they decided to abandon the original plans and order the remaining area to close their primary schools.  

The move is expected to see similar arrangements to the spring lockdown when schools continued to accept children from key worker families but moved to online learning for the vast majority of pupils.