Dr Mary Bousted, joint head of the National Education Union, has called for all primary and secondary schools to be closed.
Secondary schools in England will stagger their return to the classrooms with pupils who are set to take exams in 2021 starting back on January 11th, with other year groups returning back to school, in person, on January 18th.
Most primary schools in England will return on January 4th except those in London which will not open for most pupils until January 18th.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast Dr Bousted said: “We wrote to the Prime Minister before Christmas and we said if you look at the infection rates now among secondary school pupils they’re the highest range in being infected with Covid and primary pupils are the second-highest age range.
“We know that pupils now can transmit the virus through their homes, through to their families and into the community, they’re the most effective transmitter of the virus.
“You combine that with the new variant being up to 70% more infective than the previous Covid virus which was very infective, then it’s clear we have to do something to break the chain of rising levels of infection in our community.”
“The danger is that by opening schools as levels of infection are rising so high and are already so high amongst pupils, then we’re not going to break that chain and our NHS will become overwhelmed so we said all schools should be closed for the first two weeks.
“We regret to have to say that, we don’t want to have to say the schools will close but our fear is if we don’t do something now, they’re going to have to be closed for a much longer period later on this month.”
I think they should we are in tier for no going but the gathering with the schools we will not fight this off stay home means stays home not go out