An organized phasing will be used for the reopening of schools in England.
When will schools in England reopen?
As per Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, schools are yet to reopen, and a special medical clearance will be the only way to allow schools in England to resume classes. And if it does, the Department for Education (DfE) will follow phase by phase method in resuming classes.
There will be no one-time back to school announcement that will be happenning. Schools can only reopen gradually, when the go signal is given.
When the coronavirus outbreak hit England, it did massive damage not just economically but also on the lives of the English people. When schools were shut down, many grew concerned about the welfare of those disadvantaged children that were greatly affected by the pandemic.
Suspension of physical classes at schools in England led to the launch of distance learning. Classes were conducted online, and learning materials were made available through education-based online platforms. Everything seems to fall in place, except for the fact that there are those disadvantaged children who do not have the materials (gadgets) and means (internet) to access distance learning contents.
Fixing the problem of distance learning
The DfE has been criticized for its response to disadvantaged children during the lockdown, especially in terms of the free food school vouchers. Though the education minister already mentioned that he would look into the program and figure out where did it went wrong.
As for the distance learning problem, the department is willing to lend around 200,000 laptops fro disadvantaged students who couldn’t get a hand of a gadget to be used for online learning. In addition, Williamson is keeping in touch with the BBC Channel to possibly air educational programs in their television channel for those who can’t access the internet.
This was really a big challenge for us. Something that we were not expecting for our whole lifetime with the education department.
