Clarity is still sorely lacking from Gavin Williamson despite school closures U-turn and last year’s exams fiasco
Learn fast, Gav
THE prospect of schools remaining shut until Easter or even beyond is a nightmare for parents, the economy and, above all, our kids’ education.
As the Children’s Commissioner tells this newspaper, the first lockdown ruined some kids’ mental health and widened the gap between pupils from rich and poor backgrounds.
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Education Secretary must learn fast and give parents a clear timetable this week if schools are going to be shut until April [/caption]She is right to say schools should be first out of Lockdown 3. Right now, mums and dads have no idea if the trials and tribulations of home schooling will go on for weeks or months more. That is unacceptable.
A coalition of headteachers and private schools say they have a plan to jab all teachers in a week at half-term.
That won’t solve the problem of teenage kids getting Covid and taking it home with them. But some schools may be able to open earlier in areas with low infection rates — especially primaries, where transmission seems to be lower.
While millions of kids are suffering at home, the Government must do all it can to provide laptops for poor families, and teachers should be doing their bit in this time of collective sacrifice.
Live lessons over the internet — rather than a few shonky worksheets — are vital to home learning. Yet a shocking report by the Sutton Trust revealed only half of state schools are providing them. In private schools that figure is 86 per cent. Why?
If schools are going to be shut until April this cannot continue.
Parents may forgive Gavin Williamson if he gives them a clear timetable this week — the kind of clarity that has been sorely lacking from the Education Secretary so far.
After the disastrous exams fiasco of the summer and the embarrassing U-turns over closures earlier this month, he must know that it’s three strikes and out.
Woke joke
LISA Nandy’s backing for a barmy left-wing group calling for nuclear subs to be scrapped and our Armed Forces replaced by a “Peace Army” is bad enough.
Worse, though, was the Shadow Foreign Secretary emphatically denying that she had supported it . . . only to be caught on tape doing just that.
Lisa Nandy is not woke but simply a joke after she was caught on tape supporting nuclear subs to be scrapped[/caption]In her efforts to court the youth vote, Ms Nandy has revealed herself to be unfit for such a grown-up job.
Her leader Sir Keir Starmer must beware such nonsense.
It’s not that she’s woke. She’s a joke.
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