The Prime Minister has confirmed this afternoon that schools will be reopening next week, June 1st.
It was earlier this month when the Prime Minister revealed his plan to get children back to school.
The phased return to school announced earlier in May, will see children in Nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 return back to the classroom.
Secondary school pupils in Year 10 and 12, who have key exams next year, had also been told to prepare for ‘some face to face contact’ with secondary school and college teachers, a move that this afternoon was confirmed will happen from June 15th.
Boris Johnson said: “Closing schools has deprived children of their education, and, as so often, it is the most disadvantaged pupils who risk being hardest hit.
“On Monday we will start to put this right in a safe way by reopening nurseries and other early-years settings and Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 in primary schools.”
Commenting on today’s Downing Street announcement, Paul Whiteman, general secretary of NAHT, which represents leaders in the majority of schools, said: “School leaders and their teams have worked tirelessly over the past two weeks to put in place arrangements to keep pupils, parents and staff as safe as possible from Monday. This is an incredible achievement in such a short space of time. Perhaps the most challenging set of circumstances schools have faced for generations.
“We have been recommending to our members that they use the flexibilities afforded to them in the government’s guidance. We anticipate that this is what the majority of schools will have done.
“Despite schools’ best efforts to date, this is still a very complicated scenario and there’s still a lot of understandable fear and uncertainty out there. We now need to see a concerted effort from government to use all of its powers to communicate with families between now and Monday, so that parents know what to expect.”
