Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to ensure Qualified Teachers of Vision Impairment are able to safely provide face-to-face support to children with vision impairment.

The department has worked closely with Public Health England (PHE) to publish comprehensive guidance based on a system of controls which, when implemented in line with a revised risk assessment, creates an inherently safer environment for staff, pupils and students where the risk of transmission of the infection is substantially reduced. This provides a framework for all schools to put in place proportionate protective measures to measure risk effectively. New guidance has been published on the period during the national lockdown, which can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak.

We recognise that social distancing and other protective measures can be harder to implement in specialist settings, particularly when working with children and young people with complex needs, or those who need close contact care. The ’Guidance for full opening: Special Schools and other specialist settings’ has been developed with experts from PHE and provides advice on how special schools and other special education settings specifically can implement a ‘system of controls’ to reduce the risk of transmission. The guidance can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings.

Specialist settings should use their discretion and assess their own individual circumstances to achieve the greatest reduction in contacts. This should not unduly limit the quality or breadth of teaching, or access to support, specialist staff and therapists. This guidance can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings#the-system-of-controls-protective-measures.

The government is delivering a program of rapid asymptomatic testing from the start of January 2021 for staff, pupils and students in secondary schools and colleges. The Department for Education has provided guidance on delivering asymptomatic testing in specialist settings to support delivering testing in special schools and specialist colleges, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-full-opening-special-schools-and-other-specialist-settings/mass-asymptomatic-testing-in-specialist-settings. The government also announced that all primary schools, including primary special schools, will receive testing kits for staff from 18 January 2021 with testing of staff commencing from the 25 January.