Education Settings: Autumn Opening

Lord Taylor of Goss Moor Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, on the retention of teachers, we are relying on our existing initiatives that encourage thousands of teachers every year to return to the profession. In relation to the gap that many newly qualified teachers will have had because of schools closing, we are particularly aware of that and have advised that support should be given to them as they start their career. I assure the noble Baroness that within the £350 million tutoring fund there will be some tutors who will be full-time, in particular in disadvantaged schools that need that. There will be further guidance published on that, which will reveal whether retired and former teachers will be part of that cadre of support in our schools.

[Lord Taylor of Goss Moor (LD) [V]]

My Lords, despite the fact that children are least at risk from coronavirus, in many respects they have been among the greatest victims, as a result of losing so much of their education in the last months. So I could not more strongly support the work the Government are doing to get children back to school in September, and the campaign “Sept for Schools” that has been making this case. However, clearly there may be circumstances where school closures happen again because of particular outbreaks of coronavirus, but without furlough schemes and without the other support that has been in place for people working from home. As a single parent, I have looked after three children, aged eight to 13, and I can tell noble Lords that it is a full-time job being a teaching assistant while trying to hold down a full-time job as well. There are many millions of parents in that situation. If in the post-furlough world a school closes, what will be the support for parents who are at home, trying to look after their children and unable to work?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the noble Lord is correct: I suspect that many parents have a renewed and deepened appreciation for the role of the teacher in their children’s lives. In relation to the situations we hope to avoid going forward—we are obviously seeing a decrease in the prevalence of the virus in the population—the guidance makes it clear that by the end of September we are expecting schools to have a remote education offer that they can stand up as necessary to deal with the situation that the noble Lord outlines.