Schools are due to reopen for all pupils around the UK in the next month. Attendance will be mandatory once again at the beginning of the autumn term and headteachers will be told to follow up pupils’ absence and issue sanctions including fines. But could the UK be forced back into lockdown for schools to reopen?
Coronavirus cases are on the rise across Britain with health officials reporting more than 1,000 new cases in the past 24 hours on Sunday for the first time in weeks.
Overall, a total of 310,825 cases have been confirmed.
The number of new cases was recorded as 1,062 by official Public Health England figures, eight of which died.
Of these new cases 988 were in England, 48 in Scotland and 26 in Wales.
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The chairman of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) sub-group on pandemic modelling, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme: “I think we’re in a situation whereby most people think that opening schools is a priority for the health and wellbeing of children and that when we do that we are going to reconnect lots of households.
“And so actually, closing some of the other networks, some of the other activities may well be required to enable us to open schools.
“It might come down to a question of which do you trade off against each other, and then that’s a matter of prioritising. Do we think pubs are more important than schools?”
Fellow Sage member Prof Calum Semple, from the University of Liverpool, added: “Some hard decisions will need to be made about what restrictions need to be reintroduced.
“Whether that’s potentially the pubs and the hospitality sector taking a hit in preference to education will be a political decision.”
Mr Johnson warned of the “spiralling economic costs” because of parents and carers being unable to work.
He added: “Keeping our schools closed a moment longer than absolutely necessary is socially intolerable, economically unsustainable and morally indefensible.”
It is understood Mr Johnson favours only closing schools as part of any future local lockdowns as a last resort.
The Prime Minister said: “It’s not right that kids should spend more time out of school, it’s much much better for their health and mental wellbeing, obviously their educational prospects, if everybody comes back to school full-time in September.
“It’s our moral duty as a country to make sure that happens.”
A Downing Street source told Sky News closing schools would be a last resort.
The source said: “The PM has been clear that businesses including shops, pubs and restaurants should be forced to close first, with schools remaining open for as long as possible.”
Speaking during a visit to a school in east London on Monday, he said the “last thing we want to do is to close schools”.
Mr Johnson added: “We think that education is the priority for the country and that is simple social justice.”
Several lockdowns have been implemented across the UK in recent weeks.
Leicester was the first city to be put back under lockdown at the beginning of June.
Schools were closed early in Leicester in a bid to help slow the transmission of the disease.
Other local lockdowns in Manchester, Lancashire and Yorkshire have been imposed during the summer holiday period meaning schools have not been ordered to close, but experts now believe schools will be closed as a last resort behind all other businesses in the future.
