Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will provide financial support to schools to enable them to occupy larger buildings so that they can provide education to pupils in a covid-secure environment in classroom settings.

On 7 January we published further guidance, ‘Restricting attendance during the national lockdown: schools’, which sets out what all schools will need to do during the COVID-19 outbreak from January 2021. This includes the system of controls that schools must continue to adopt to the fullest extent possible to reduce risks in their school and create an inherently safer environment. Guidance is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/950510/School_national_restrictions_guidance.pdf

Schools should continue to minimise contact between individuals and maintain social distancing wherever possible. This can be achieved through keeping groups separate and by maintaining the distance between individuals. Whilst schools are attended by vulnerable children and the children of critical workers only, where possible schools should keep group sizes small. Any additional space available where there are lower numbers of pupils attending should be used wherever possible to maximise the distance between pupils and between staff and other people.

We do not consider it necessary for schools to make significant adaptations to their site to enable them to operate in this way. Following a risk assessment, some schools may determine that small adaptations to their site are required. This will be at the discretion of individual schools, based on their particular circumstances. As such, schools should use their existing resources for this purpose, where necessary.

Schools continue to receive their budgets this year, as usual, regardless of any periods of partial or complete closure. School budgets are rising by £2.6 billion in 2020-21, £4.8 billion in 2021-22 and £7.1 billion in 2022-23, compared to the 2019-20 financial year. This increase in funding will help schools with costs associated with the COVID-19 outbreak.