Pre-school Education: Coronavirus

(asked on 29th January 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 18 January to Question 134593, when he plans to provide updated modelling for early years settings, in the context of the increased (a) transmissibility and (b) death rates attributed to the new covid-19 variant.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 3rd February 2021

The wider significant restrictions in place as part of the national lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19 in the community enable us to continue prioritising keeping nurseries and childminders open, supporting parents and delivering the crucial care and education needed for our youngest children.

We continue to prioritise keeping early years settings open in full because of the clear benefits to children’s education and wellbeing and to support families. Caring for the youngest age group is not something that can be done remotely.

Early years settings remain low risk environments for children and staff. Current evidence suggests that pre-school children (0 to 5 years) are less susceptible to infection and are unlikely to be playing a driving role in transmission.

There is no evidence that the new variant of COVID-19 disproportionately affects young children. The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health has recently made clear that the overwhelming majority of children still have no symptoms or very mild illness only.

Modelling carried out by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling last spring in the context of relaxing school closures following the initial lockdown period suggested that resuming early years provision has a smaller relative impact than primary school, which in turn has a smaller relative impact than resuming secondary schooling. Further information can be found here: 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.

Throughout the COVID-19 outbreak, the department has made decisions informed by data, analysis and advice from a number of different sources including the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), Public Health England, the Office for National Statistics, and the Joint Biosecurity Centre to ensure our policies are guided by the most up to date scientific evidence.

The scientific evidence papers from SAGE meetings are published in tranches and are available by following the link: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/scientific-evidence-supporting-the-government-response-to-coronavirus-covid-19.

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