UPDATED (3/10/20): Schools - 1 Month To Go - Government Putting Children At Risk AGAIN

Snippet from Today's Sunday Times

UPDATE (3/10/20): ITV News is reporting today that the infection rates for Covid-19 are rising fastest in young people. They say:

 

"The rise in the number of young people testing positive for coronavirus coincides with their return to school and university"

 

Somerset Independents reacts to this news in the article at this link here, where we announce that we will stand candidates at the next County Council elections.  

 

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The Sunday Times' Education Editor Sian Griffiths is reporting today (snippet above) that schools are preparing to continue e-lessons online. Home learning is set to continue when schools return in just under a month, in early September.

Somerset Independents has been urging Somerset County Council to be honest about their failure to stand up for Somerset's parents and children from the Conservative Government during the Covid-19 lockdown.

We contacted the Conservative Cabinet Member for Education, Faye Purbrick, with a set of questions about whether children could return to school. It was revealed from our questions to her in June, that 94% of children did not return to school, despite the Government opening schools up to selected years.

The Sunday Times report says that OFSTED will be inspecting schools on remote schooling and that:

"All schools will have to be able to deliver online classes, including in real time, to children in their homes."

This is despite the Government telling parents that they will be fined if they do not send their children back to school next month, and the Government telling schools that they have to re-open.

So it seems that home-schooling is set to continue and that lessons being attended online will have to be counted as "attendance".

Ms Griffiths said on times.radio yesterday evening:

"I think schools are in a really really difficult position... It's an almost impossible situation... On the one hand they have to do all the logistical planning of how they are going to bring all the kids back to school on September 1st or from September 1st. I doubt everybody will be back on that day. It will be staggered..."

Ms Griffiths went on to say that teachers were not used to doing remote lessons and that schools during lockdown did not deliver remote lessons.

Somerset Independents Spokesperson for Education, Denise Wyatt, says:

"Just like in June, Boris Johnson's Conservative Government and his Education Minister Gavin Williamson seem to live in an alternate reality from the rest of us.

Parents did not want to send their children back to school the last time. And we are pleased they didn't.

When is this failing Government going to listen to parents, and act in the interests of children, instead of burying their heads in the sand?

If the Government acknowledged the reality that home-schooling and e-learning is going to become more common, they could then work with local councils, parents and school staff to plan for it.

Instead, they want everyone in Somerset to pretend that there is a vaccine and effective treatments for Covid-19. We've got news for them - THERE ISN'T."

Co-Founder of Somerset Independents Andrew Pope says:

"The Tories put their own media image, their wealthy donors and their party first. It seems that the health and education of Somerset residents, parents and children are very low on the priority list for the Tory County Councillors and the Tory Government.

Meanwhile, as we have discovered and shown to Somerset residents, the pathetic effort of Westminster's Labour MPs and the small band of Somerset Labour councillors, are ineffective at standing up for Somerset residents. They put themselves ahead of residents, just like the Tories.

This is another example of Labour or Tory, same old story.

And before the Lib Dems or Greens think that we favour them instead, we want to be absolutely clear that we do not. They have not provided a loud voice for Somerset residents either.

Somerset deserves better than the Westminster parties."