School reopening: what we know so far from The Key

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The government has announced that schools may reopen for some year groups from 1 June, if its monitoring of the coronavirus situation indicates that this will be safe. Find out what else it announced, and what this means for your school.

Contents

Updated 15 May: we’ve added details on the curriculum priorities for primary schools in the fourth section, and added a link to new safe working guidance in the last section.
We’ll continue to update this article as more information becomes available. Click ‘Save for later’ in the top-right corner to get an email alert when we’ve done this.

Encourage more vulnerable children to come to school

You should increasingly urge children of critical workers and, in particular, vulnerable children to attend school in person if they would benefit from doing so.

The DfE says it’s no longer necessary for parents of children in these priority groups to keep them at home if they can.

You shouldn’t ask any other pupils to attend at this stage.

Some year groups may return from 1 June

Alongside the priority groups you may already be open for, you’ll be asked to welcome some year groups back into school from 1 June at the earliest.

Pupils in these year groups will be ‘strongly encouraged’ to attend, but:

  • Parents won’t be fined for non-attendance
  • You won’t be held accountable for attendance levels

We’ve set out below the groups the government is planning to get back into school, subject to its assessment of the risk of coronavirus.

There’s no word yet on when the government will confirm that these plans are going ahead, but we’ll update you as soon as we know more.

Early years settings

You’ll be asked to open to all children.

Primary schools

You’ll be asked to open for all pupils in:

  • Nursery
  • Reception
  • Year 1
  • Year 6

If you’re an infant school, you can choose to prioritise nursery and reception classes over year 1 pupils if you need to.

The government’s ambition is that all primary school pupils will eventually return to school before summer holidays, for a month if feasible.

Secondary schools

You’ll be asked to provide some face-to-face support to pupils in:

  • Year 10
  • Year 12

This support should supplement their continuing remote education, so it won’t need to be full-time provision.

Special schools

You’ll be asked to welcome back as many children as you can safely cater for.

You can prioritise attendance based on:

  • Key transitions
  • Impact on life chances and development

You may also want to create a part-time attendance rota, so that as many children as possible can benefit from attending.

Alternative provision (AP) settings

You’ll be asked to open for all pupils in:

  • Reception
  • Year 1
  • Year 6

You’ll also be expected to provide some face-to-face support to pupils in:

  • Year 10
  • Year 11

This support should supplement their remote education, so it won’t need to be full-time provision.

Not all staff and eligible pupils should attend

The DfE says:

  • If they’re clinically extremely vulnerable (as defined here), they should continue to learn or work from home
  • If they’re clinically vulnerable (as defined here) – parents should follow medical advice if their child is in this category, and staff in this category should continue to work from home wherever possible
  • If they live with someone who’s clinically extremely vulnerable, they should only attend if stringent social distancing can be adhered to and, in the case of children, they’re able to understand and follow those instructions
  • If they live with someone who’s clinically vulnerable (but not clinically extremely vulnerable), they can attend school
  • Anyone experiencing symptoms of coronavirus, or living with anyone experiencing symptoms, shouldn’t attend

No specific curriculum requirements after reopening

You can decide how best to support and educate pupils. You won’t be penalised if you can’t offer a broad and balanced curriculum during this period.

However, the DfE expects you to:

  • Consider your pupils’ mental health and wellbeing, and identify any pupil who may need additional support so they’re ready to learn
  • Assess where pupils are in their learning, and agree what adjustments might be needed to your curriculum
  • Identify and plan how best to support the education of high needs groups, including disadvantaged pupils, vulnerable pupils and pupils with SEND
  • Support pupils in year 6, who’ll need both their primary and secondary schools to work together to support their transition to year 7 (see our guidance on doing this here)

Priorities for primary schools
The DfE has said you should prioritise:

  • Resocialisation into new school routines
  • Speaking and listening
  • Regaining momentum in particular with early reading
  • For children who’ve had limited opportunities for exercise, opportunities to exert themselves physically with supervised non-touch running games
  • For year 1, ascertain where children are against your existing reading curriculum and if they’re behind help them catch up or relearn any forgotten material
  • For year 6, focus on their readiness for secondary school, particularly their academic readiness in mathematics and English

If you have EYFS provision, you should use reasonable endeavours to provide activities and experiences across all 7 areas of learning (see here for more details).

You’ll need to follow new safety guidelines
The DfE has published guidance on protective measures in schools and safe working ahead of reopening.

We’ll be putting out resources as soon as we can, to help you put these measures into place.

Sources
This article is based on the following DfE guidance: