One in five children will be urged to go back to the classroom

One in five children will be urged to go back to the classroom from next week as 1.7million pupils who are vulnerable or have key worker parents start phased return to school

• Key workers have been entitled to keep sending their children to class throughout the lockdown, but they were urged to look after them at home.
• The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage these parents to send their children to school.

One in five children will be urged to return to the classroom from next week as part of a gradual reopening of schools. 

More than 1.7million pupils who are vulnerable or whose parents are key workers will be asked to go back. 

Ministers will then target the first week of June for a wider reopening of primary schools, before secondary schools allow pupils in years ten and 12 to return.

Key workers have been entitled to keep sending their children to class throughout the lockdown, but when schools shut six weeks ago they were urged to look after them at home where possible. 

The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage key workers to send their children to school

The Government is now preparing to issue guidance that will instead encourage these parents to send their children to school. 

Just one parent needs to be a key worker for their child to be eligible but parents will not be fined for not sending them in. 

Figures from the Department for Education show that 3.7 per cent of pupils in England attended school on the first day that schools were closed, falling to 1.3 per cent by the beginning of the second week. 

Attendance dropped to 0.4 per cent during the week that would have been the Easter holidays. 

But the figures have started to rise with an average of 165,000 children – 1.7 per cent of pupils – turning up each day in the week before last. 

At the Downing Street press conference last night, Michael Gove said the Government was ‘particularly keen to help vulnerable and disadvantaged children to carry on with their education during the pandemic’. 

This category includes those at risk of abuse or neglect or with particular special needs. 

Officials are looking at options including having classes in on alternate days or weeks to allow them to spread out

Schools are expected to start allowing pupils back who are not vulnerable or the children of key workers from the start of June, starting with primary schools. 

Officials are looking at options including having classes in on alternate days or weeks to allow them to spread out. 

Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman yesterday said there is a ‘great deal of logic’ in targeting younger children to return to the classroom. 

She told Sophy Ridge On Sunday that the younger they are ‘the more they need routine’. 

But Kevin Courtney, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: ‘While we all want to see a return to some sort of normality, the National Education Union believes it’s really premature to talk about a June return date.’

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