Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what scientific advice from the Task and Finish Working Group did his Department receive in relation to the integration of testing and tracing into the phased reopening of schools on 1 June 2020.

The Government made clear that schools would only be opened more widely when the five key tests set by Government justified the changes at the time.

The Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) Children’s Task and Finish Working Group have provided scientific health advice to the Government. This advice was used, alongside other sources of information, to inform decision making on the wider opening of schools.

SAGE are publishing papers in regular tranches. The list of papers to be released to date are available by following this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies-sage-coronavirus-covid-19-response. This includes several schools-related papers and those authored by the Task and Finish Group.

The Task and Finish Group’s paper provided insights from indicative modelling of a number of different school opening scenarios. It also provided a behavioural assessment of these options. In doing so it highlighted that wider contextual issues should be considered when assessing the impact of relaxing school closures including the role of testing in schools. The Task and Finish groups paper can be found by following this link: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/886994/s0257-sage-sub-group-modelling-behavioural-science-relaxing-school-closures-sage30.pdf.

In addition, the Department for Education has published an explanatory note to accompany SAGE’s findings from the Interdisciplinary Task and Finish Group and can be found by following this link: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-education-explanatory-note-on-sage-modelling.