First minister apologises after predicted awards downgraded more heavily in poorer areas
Nicola Sturgeon has apologised to tens of thousands of Scottish teenagers whose exam results were downgraded last week and promised urgent changes to their awards.
The first minister attempted to defuse a growing crisis for her government by confirming that her deputy, John Swinney, would lay out proposals to regrade results in the Scottish parliament on Tuesday.
Continue reading...As schools around the world prepare to reopen, new scientific evidence about children and coronavirus is coming to light
Back in April, the French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet found himself leading an investigation in the town of Crépy-en-Valois, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants just to the north-east of Paris. In February, the town’s middle and high schools had become the centre of a new outbreak of Covid-19.
Fontanet and colleagues from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were tasked with conducting antibody testing across Crépy-en-Valois to understand the extent to which the virus had been circulating. As they surveyed the town, they noted an interesting pattern. While the virus had spread rampantly through the high school, with 38% of students being infected, along with 43% of teachers and 59% of non-teaching staff, the same was not true for the town’s six primary schools. While three primary-age pupils had caught Covid-19 in early February, none of these infections had led to a secondary case. Overall, just 9% of primary age pupils, 7% of teachers and 4% of non-teaching staff had been infected with the virus.
Continue reading...Prime minister says it is a ‘national priority’ and ‘moral duty’ to get all pupils back into classrooms
Boris Johnson has spoken of “a moral duty” to get all children back in class amid indications he would force pubs, restaurants and shops to close ahead of schools in the event of severe coronavirus flare-ups.
The prime minister is understood to favour only closing schools as the last resort after scientific advisers warned more restrictions may be needed to reopen classrooms in England next month.
Continue reading...Language decline among newly qualified teachers could undermine goal of reaching 1 million Welsh speakers
A “striking” decline in the number of newly qualified teachers able to teach in Welsh could undermine the country’s ambition to have a million speakers of the language in 30 years’ time, a report warns.
The Welsh language commissioner, Aled Roberts, expressed concern about the trend and called for the devolved government to take urgent action to reverse the fall.
Continue reading...Exclusive: from schools to policing, 50 people share their experiences of growing up in the UK
Following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK and across the world, the Guardian interviewed 50 young black Britons, many of whom have been at the heart of the recent anti-racism protests, to ask what changes they would like to see in their lifetime.
Three demands came up repeatedly: decolonising the curriculum; divesting funds away from police forces in favour of a public health-focused approach to crime; and better representation of black Britons across a wider section of society.
Continue reading...Governor Gavin Newsom said public schools will not be allowed to hold in-person classes if their county is on a monitoring list
California’s governor has announced strict rules for school reopening that would prevent the vast majority of students from returning to classrooms in the fall as coronavirus cases hit their highest levels yet in the state.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the new guidance on Friday, which mandates that public schools in California counties that are on a monitoring list for rising coronavirus infections cannot hold in-person classes, and will have to meet rigorous criteria for reopening.
Continue reading...Vic Goddard is one of many school leaders daunted by the burden of supporting pupils and staff through their grief
Vic Goddard is trying not to cry. The headteacher of Passmores academy in Harlow and star of the 2011 TV series Educating Essex is thinking about the 23 pupils and two staff at his school who have been bereaved during the coronavirus pandemic.
His greatest fear, a fear that keeps him awake at night and is making his voice tremble, is what could happen to them if he does not manage to support them adequately when they return to school. “I’m going to get upset, I’m really sorry…” he stops. “You feel dreadfully … dreadfully … There is an element of responsibility.”
Continue reading...Scotland’s distancing rule to be relaxed for some sectors; lockdown-easing paused in some Scottish towns; getting English schools back to normal critical, Williamson says
A “partial reopening” of the tourism sector in Wales is to take place over the next few weeks as long as rates of coronavirus continue to fall, the Welsh government has announced.
The Labour-led government has asked visitors to enjoy their time in the country – but to respect local communities.
Tourism is a vital part of the Welsh economy at a national, regional and local level. I’d like to thank all our industry partners for working with us to carefully reopen the visitor economy.
A successful, safe and phased return will give businesses, communities and visitors confidence to continue with the recovery of the visitor economy.
NHS England has recorded a further 35 coronavirus hospital deaths in England. The full figures are here.
For comparison, here are the equivalent daily figures announced by NHS England over the past fortnight.
Continue reading...From 6 July, people with underlying health issues will no longer have to avoid all contact with others
With the government relaxing lockdown for those shielding from Covid-19 in England, we explore what this means for the most vulnerable in society.
Continue reading...The education secretary has pledged that all children in all year groups in England will return to school in September. He said he understood parents' anxiety about the move, but that safety measures including protective bubbles would be in place to limit the risk of transmitting Covid-19
Continue reading...‘Covid summer food fund’ announced after pressure from footballer and campaigners
Boris Johnson has been forced into a humbling U-turn over providing food vouchers for some of England’s poorest families after a campaign launched by the footballer Marcus Rashford threatened to engulf his government in another crisis.
In an embarrassing about-face, the prime minister said that on Tuesday he had called the England and Manchester United striker to explain the reversal, and made the remarkable claim that he had only become aware of Rashford’s interest in the issue earlier in the day.
Continue reading...Covid-19 lockdown made children vulnerable to abuses including FGM and child marriage say NGOs, as schools in England prepare to reopen
Covid-19 school closures have exposed children around the world to human rights abuses such as forced genital mutilation, early marriage and sexual violence, child protection experts say.
Globally, the World Bank estimates that 1.6 billion children were locked out of education by Covid-19. As schools in England and around the world prepare to reopen this week, NGOs warn that millions of the world’s most vulnerable children may never return to the classroom, and say that after decades fighting for girls’ education the pandemic could cause gender equality in education to be set back decades.
Continue reading...The Cabinet Office minister has said he is confident children and teachers will be safe if they return to the classroom, but admitted the risk remained of contracting Covid-19. Appearing on BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show, Michael Gove said: ‘The only way ever to ensure that you never catch coronavirus is to stay at home completely. There’s always, always, always in any loosening of these restrictions a risk of people catching the coronavirus’
Twitter CEO’s $10m pledge will immediately help ‘put a device in the hand of every single kid’ in Oakland’s public schools
Jack Dorsey, the CEO of Twitter and Square, has announced that he will donate $10m toward computers and internet access for public schools in Oakland, a city where half of students lack reliable access to either.
Dorsey dropped the news after the Oakland mayor, Libby Schaaf, tweeted a video of one those 25,000 students without access to the technology. “Every student deserves the ability to learn from home,” wrote Schaaf.
Continue reading...They have a middle-class reputation, but one outdoor school near Nottingham is reconnecting disadvantaged 10-year-olds with nature and a sense of freedom
When Kate Milman was 21, she paused her English degree at the University of East Anglia to join protests against the Newbury bypass. It was 1996, and the road was being carved out through idyllic wooded countryside in Berkshire. She took up residence in a treehouse, in the path of the bulldozers, and lived there for months. It was a revelation. She lived intimately with the catkins, the calling birds, the slow-slow-fast change in the seasons. Despite being in a precarious position as a protester, she felt completely safe and her brain was calmed.
“You know when you go camping and go back to your house, and everything feels wrong? The lighting is harsh and everything seems complicated indoors. It just got under my skin, this feeling – that [living in the woods] is like being at home.”
Continue reading...While the federal education minister banked on parents’ frustration with home schooling, those same parents are also worried
It’s been a wild old Sunday, with the federal education minister Dan Tehan going from raging bull to mewling kitten in the space of four hours, so let’s work through things step by step.
Scott Morrison has been intensely frustrated with school closures for weeks. The prime minister wants schools to reopen as the bedrock of getting the economy moving again, and the bulk of the medical advice before the government suggests that schools are low risk.
Continue reading...Germany’s top coronavirus expert says children play as big a role as adults in spread
More countries across Europe are preparing to reopen schools in the coming weeks despite conflicting advice from scientifist, some of whom caution against underestimating children’s potential to spread the coronavirus.
Some schools and nurseries in Denmark and Norway have already reopened, and grandparents in Switzerland are allowed to hug grandchildren under 10, following a ruling by the health ministry’s head of infectious diseases that it is safe to do so.
Continue reading...From schools to shops, with jobs at risk, the government must balance the interests of economy and public safety
As the prime minister, Boris Johnson, heads back to Downing Street, he faces calls from Labour to be clearer about how Britain might start lifting the coronavirus lockdown, now entering its fifth week. On Sunday, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, Dominic Raab, warned the outbreak remained at a “delicate and dangerous” stage and said it was irresponsible to speculate about steps to modify the rules underpinning government’s “stay home, protect the NHS, save lives” strategy.
More than 20,000 people have died from Covid-19 in NHS hospitals and thousands more in care homes. But there are growing concerns about the economic impact of lockdown. Gerard Lyons, Johnson’s economics adviser when he was London mayor, warned on Sunday the UK could be the hardest-hit western economy if it does not unlock soon. The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, also called on ministers to start talking to teachers, businesses, trade unions and town hall leaders and open “honest conversations with the public about what new arrangements might look like”. Unions insist worker safety must not be compromised by any changes and questions remain about public appetite for risking a new peak of contagion, but plans to modify restrictions are starting to emerge.
Continue reading...Fewer than three out of 15 families in NSW far west have broadband, making digital classrooms unviable
Teachers in far western NSW say they have been hand-delivering lessons to Aboriginal students at home because families don’t have reliable access the internet and many don’t have computers for their children to work on.
To allow children to keep learning, Wilcannia central school teachers have been making lesson packs for their students and delivering them in person every few days, on a 9km round trip in the school minibus.
Continue reading...Education minister had said schools needed to offer in-person education or risk losing funding
Christian Schools Australia (CSA) has demanded the federal government withdraw a threat to independent schools and instead commit to guarantee funding even if enrolments drop off as a result of Covid-19.
On Thursday the education minister, Dan Tehan, wrote to all independent school associations ordering them to provide in-person education to children from term two or risk losing their federal funding.
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