Schools: Coronavirus

(asked on 18th May 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what scientific advice his Department received on reopening schools on 1 June 2020 for (a) nursery, (b) reception, (c) Year 1 and (d) Year 6 pupils during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 28th May 2020

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) and its sub-group the Children’s Task and Finish Working Group have provided scientific health advice to the Government. This advice has been used, alongside other sources of information, to inform decision making on potential schools re-opening options.

The list of papers to be released to date are available by following the link below, including several schools-related papers. This list will be updated to reflect papers considered at future meetings:

https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response

The Government has also made clear that schools will only be opened more widely when the five key tests set by Government justify the changes at the time, including that the rate of infection is decreasing.

The Department has also engaged with Public Health England to devise a ‘hierarchy of controls’ which, when implemented, will create an inherently safer system where the risk of transmission of the infection is substantially reduced.

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