Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, for what reasons different rules on social distancing are being applied in schools compared to other sectors.

Keeping people safe continues to be the Government’s main priority. We want all children and young people to be able to get back into school as soon as the scientific advice allows – it is the best place for them to be educated and we know how important it is for their mental wellbeing to have social interactions with their peers and teachers.

Our approach for education and childcare settings to prepare for a gradual returning of pupils from 1 June is underpinned by our latest understanding of the science, which indicates that we need to take a phased approach to limit the risk of increasing the rate of transmission. We have specifically factored in:

• severity of disease in children – there is high scientific confidence that children of all ages have less severe symptoms than adults if they contract coronavirus;
• the age of children – there is moderately high scientific confidence that younger children are less likely to become unwell if infected with coronavirus;
• numbers of children going back – which needs to be limited initially then increased gradually as the science permits; and
• systems to reduce the size of the groups coming into contact with each other – such as smaller class sizes spread out across setting.

Early years and primary age children cannot be expected, unlike older children and adults, to remain 2 metres apart from each other and staff. In deciding to bring more children back to early years and schools, we have also taken this into account. Protective measures are possible which, when implemented, substantially reduce the risk of transmission of infection.

It is still important to reduce contact between people as much as possible, and we can achieve that and reduce transmission risk by ensuring children, young people and staff where possible, only mix in a small, consistent group; and that small group stays away from other people and groups. Public Health England is clear that if early years settings, schools and colleges do this, and crucially if they are also applying regular hand cleaning, hygiene and cleaning measures and handling potential cases of the virus as per the advice, then the risk of transmission will be lowered. Where settings are able to keep children and young people in those small groups 2 metres away from each other, they should do so. We have published guidance on implementing protective measures in education and childcare settings to support settings to get this right, available here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings/coronavirus-covid-19-implementing-protective-measures-in-education-and-childcare-settings.