EARLIER this week, the government was forced to make an embarrassing U-turn regarding the wider reopening of schools in England. 

In May, Boris Johnson announced that reception, year-one and year-six children were due to return on June 1 — with year 10 returning later this month. 

However, teachers, head teachers and local authorities rejected Johnson’s proposal, refusing to open their doors to more pupils until it is safe. 

Similarly, parents refused to send their children back to the classroom while they are still at risk. 

Now, Education Secretary Gavin Williamson has admitted that schools will not reopen until September. 

Despite using face-saving phrases such as “cautious, phased return” and “flexible,” it is clear that this is a humiliating defeat for the government — and a momentous victory for education unions.

Last Monday marked the government’s proposed reopening date. In reality, the vast majority of schools never really closed: most have been running provision for the children of key workers and vulnerable students throughout lockdown. 

Nonetheless, the Prime Minister’s initial announcement gave schools just one week to prepare for wider reopening, offering precious little guidance on the practicalities of this. 

The announcement was incredibly rushed and, with no concrete plans, prompted many to question whether pupils, staff, their families and their wider communities would be safe.

It is fair to say that the National Education Union led the pushback against the government’s premature wider reopening plans. 

Within an hour of the Prime Minister’s announcement, the NEU mobilised 50,000 members to respond to a survey on the proposed return date. 

The union then established five extremely reasonable tests which must be met to guarantee the safe reopening of schools. These are:

• Much lower number of Covid-19 cases

• A national plan for social distancing

• Regular and comprehensive access to testing for staff and students

• A whole-school strategy for responding to in-school Covid-19 cases

• Protection for vulnerable staff and arrangements for them to work from home.

The NEU’s Five Tests campaign has gained national traction, with vast numbers of parents, head teachers and local authorities agreeing that these reasonable expectations must be met before schools can safely reopen to larger numbers of pupils.

The NEU petition to open schools only when it’s safe has amassed almost 450,000 signatures — demonstrating extensive agreement from teaching staff, support staff, school senior-leadership staff, head teachers, parents and other concerned members of the public.

Major teaching unions NEU and NASUWT also released a joint statement appealing for safe school reopening — along with the National Association of Head Teachers, Unite, Unison, the Association of Educational Psychologists, GMB, National Society for Education in Art and Design, and Prospect. 

This position was bolstered by a letter from the British Medical Association to NEU joint general secretaries Kevin Courtney and Dr Mary Bousted, backing the union’s demands to open schools only when it is safe.

The government claims that the push to reopen schools is due to its concerns that disadvantaged and vulnerable students are being negatively affected by school closures. 

Williamson said: “We recognise that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are the ones that are going to suffer the most if we do not bring schools back when we are able to do so.”

Most education professionals would agree with the sentiment of this. A lot of vulnerable students have domestic settings which are just not conducive to home learning. 

This may be a chaotic or volatile environment. There may be domestic violence or substance abuse. They may spend time at more than one home — dependent on parental/guardian custody arrangements — and struggle to organise their school work between the two. They may not have their own room or quiet space to work in. They may not have computer or internet access — beyond, perhaps, a smartphone. 

These are all issues which disproportionately affect working-class children and families.

But the question is: does the government actually care about these things? 

The answer is a resounding No. The past 10 years of funding cuts to education demonstrate that this Tory government does not care about vulnerable or disadvantaged children. 

Despite pledging £2.6 billion for the 2020-21 academic year, this is a real-terms cut, leaving a shortfall of £2.5bn. 

Lancashire schools have lost £52 million of funding this year alone. In Bradford this is a £41m loss; in Leeds — £22m. Some schools have suffered a staggering loss of almost £1,000 per pupil, per year.

On top of direct cuts to school funding, wider neoliberal policy has significant adverse effects on disadvantaged and vulnerable pupils — effects which reach far beyond the classroom. 

Cuts to children’s services; cuts to social services; poor wages; lack of job security; lack of housing security — all disproportionately destabilise working-class families, putting working-class children at greater risk of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

So, if not for the benefit of vulnerable and disadvantaged pupils, why is the government desperate to reopen schools before scientists, medical professionals and teaching unions are satisfied that it is safe to do so? 

Perhaps the government is concerned about the detrimental effect that school closures have had on academic attainment? 

Surely, if that were the case, we would see prestigious public schools eager to open as soon as the government gives them the green light. 

But this is not so — the pupils of Eton and Harrow will be safe from classroom and corridor virus transmission until September.

Instead, working-class parents are being forced by economic necessity to send their children back to unsafe schools while they return to unsafe workplaces for poverty wages. 

Once working-class children are back in school, their parents can get back to work — like lambs to the slaughter — risking their lives to line the pockets of the rich.

But still, there’s light in the darkness. The work of the NEU over recent weeks and months has given members, reps, senior-leadership teams and local authorities the tools they need to resist premature reopening plans. 

As a result, many head teachers and local authorities refused to go ahead with opening their schools on Monday. 

There is a very real possibility that this action has saved lives.

The tragedy of coronavirus has acted as a catalyst for class consciousness — eliciting unprecedented worker solidarity in communities that have long-since become apathetic to left-wing politics. 

The ensuing battle for safe workplaces has thrown trade unionism directly into the public eye and highlighted the formidable power of the National Education Union. 

Teachers know it, the public knows it – and the government knows it. 

Over the course of the crisis, the NEU has amassed 20,000 new members and 2,000 new workplace representatives. 

Teachers across Britain are more active and politicised than they have been for a long time and are throwing down the gauntlet in their own workplaces. 

With the union unable to legally ballot for strike action in the timeframe between the Prime Minister’s short notice announcement and the proposed wider opening date, members and reps took up arms in their schools, using the NEU’s Five Tests and Coronavirus Crisis Workplace Checklists as negotiating weapons. 

This demonstrates a really significant shift towards a powerful, cohesive union of militant members engaging in collective bargaining to secure rights in individual schools — united by the leadership’s national strategy. 

In this strengthened position, we have the chance to influence the direction that education policy takes. Policy which is written in the interests of our students, adequately funded, and ensures that teacher workload is manageable. 

We will not go back to an education system that bleeds creativity, enthusiasm and individuality out of pupils and staff alike. 

Education professionals are best placed to shape our vision for the future, and our unions are in a position to present a list of demands when we do go back to school.

So what might those demands look like? What do our pupils need?

Children have experienced a major global event and will have found this unsettling — or even traumatic. 

Many of our pupils will be in dire need of pastoral support. Many will be in dire need of mental-health support. Many will simply need time to emotionally recuperate from the upheaval. 

We need to be prepared to meet these different needs: a one-size-fits-all approach just won’t work. 

There can be no talk of Ofsted, no talk of inspections, and no talk of academic catch-up targets. These measures are not in the best interests of pupils or staff.

Educators need the necessary professional autonomy in order to reintegrate pupils back into their school setting and acclimatise them to their forever-changed learning environment. 

Without this cautious, child-centred transitionary period, we are setting our students — the Covid generation — up to fail.

Schools must be given the freedom to do what is best for their pupils in this unprecedented time. 

The government must support this approach and commit funding and resources to help schools (and other children’s services) to move on from Covid-19 to a position in which pupils are once again able to learn and progress.

Laura Briggs is a secondary school teacher and NEU member.