Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that pupils can learn safely in education settings.

Protecting face-to-face education is our top priority. There is a package of measures and support in place to help reduce transmission and retain face-to-face teaching as much as possible.

All education and childcare staff, and students of secondary school age and above should continue to test twice a week a home, 3 to 4 days apart with lateral flow device test kits. Testing remains voluntary but is strongly encouraged. As of 19 January, over 109.5 million tests (including household bubble and support bubble tests) have been completed in all education providers, including higher education.

All eligible staff and students aged 12 and over are encouraged to take up the offer of the vaccine, including boosters, where eligible. On 22 December 2021, the government accepted advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation that a primary course of vaccination should be offered to children aged 5 to 11 years old who are in a clinical risk group, or who are a household contact of someone (of any age) who is immunosuppressed. On 24 January, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that the government will distribute a total of £8 million in funding to NHS England to support secondary schools with the vitally important in-school vaccination programme for young people.

In addition to over 353,000 CO2 monitors already delivered to education providers, we are also making a total of up to 9,000 air cleaning units available for poorly ventilated teaching spaces in state-funded education providers, where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible.

We no longer recommend that face coverings are worn in classrooms, teaching spaces or when moving around the premises outside of classrooms, such as in corridors and communal areas. Directors of public health may temporarily, and exceptionally, advise individual providers experiencing outbreaks to use face coverings in either communal areas or classrooms, as part of their responsibilities in outbreak management. The contingency framework provides more information on the principles of managing local outbreaks of COVID-19 in education and childcare providers. This framework is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-local-restrictions-in-education-and-childcare-settings.