Despite John Swinney’s news, councils still need school contingency plan – Steve Cardownie

On recently opening a letter from my son’s school which detailed the days that he would be expected to attend on its resumption in August my heart sank. Although no fault of the school, the plan to restrict his attendance to a couple of days a week left me cold. This in no way could be deemed as satisfactory, given that he had been on an enforced break for quite some time and needed to ‘catch up’.

I, in common with other parents, wanted to see the resumption of full-time schooling as soon as possible and was encouraged by the view expressed by Professor Devi Sridhar, a public health specialist at Edinburgh University who took to Twitter to state that:

“If Covid-19 can be brought low enough in Scotland by the end of August (under 20 confirmed cases) and with appropriate ‘test and protect’ policies, my personal view is that schools should reopen as normally as possible (kids back full-time and able to play/interact together).”

Well it seems that her advice has not fallen on deaf ears and John Swinney, the Education Secretary, spelled out that this was the Scottish Government’s position in a statement he made yesterday.

So all is not lost but local authorities cannot afford to sit back and presume that this is a done deal, for if conditions don’t allow for a full-time return to school, their contingency plans will come into play – plans that to many parents/guardians are woefully inadequate in meeting pupils’ educational needs.

So pressure should still be applied on local authorities to force them to fulfil their obligations and come up with bold, imaginative ways to cater for pupils needs and aspirations, plans that will hopefully not be needed but will be necessary just in case they are required.

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