Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what his policy is on allowing schools to use a rota system to remain partially open during the covid-19 outbreak.

Schools should not move to rotas. The best place for children to be is in schools, which is why it remains a national priority to keep them open full time and avoid further disruption to education.

The Department has published an updated contingency framework which sets out that in the exceptional circumstances in which restrictions were required on schools, to help contain transmission of COVID-19 within a community, rotas would not be implemented. Any implementation remains a decision for central government and would only come as a last resort to control extremely high prevalence of COVID-19 if all other measures had been exhausted.

The updated contingency framework is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-contingency-framework-for-education-and-childcare-settings.