Calderdale Council ramps up efforts to prepare for all school re-opening

The council children's services chiefs believe about double the space will be needed in schools to allow children to return safely in the coming weeks, amid the coronavirus crisis.

With some extra reception, Year 1 and Year 6 pupils returning to school last week in line with the Government's target date of June 1, and with parents and carers of Year 10 secondary school age children urged to send them back to school on June 15 and 16, solutions to physical issues are being considered.

So far Calderdale Council's advice to parents is that it is not yet safe for parents to return their children to school but Director of Public Health Deborah Harkins told members of the Children and Young People's Scrutiny Board that the necessary data which will allow more accurate risk assessment for returning would soon be made available from Government.

Board members debated how this might be done and what examples there already were in other countries as to how it has been done.

Coun Amanda Parsons-Hulse (Lib Dem, Warley) had read reports about authorities in Denmark using public space in buildings such as museums which meant social distancing could be carried out while children were taught.

"I thought that was a really good idea, that I want to put out there - is that something we would pilot in Calderdale?" she said.

Director of Children and Young People's Services, Julie Jenkins, had also seen that report and said education and health teams were working with schools on a logistics agenda.

"To get all children back we need to double the space and we need some way we could get them all back at the same time.

"I want to talk to headteachers about logistically and physically how we are going to manage it. The Denmark model is interesting.

"Government has said we have to have to make use of outside space but we are doing a lot of that anyway," she said.

There are also the issues of the amount of transported needed to get large numbers of children bacl to school, said Ms Jenkins.

Extra primary age children who have returned to school - schools and Calderdale College have always been open for children of key workers and vulnerable children - are being taught in classes half the size they are used to with headteachers trying to ensure friends are placed in the same "pods" as they cannot mix with children from other pods.

Children who have not yet returned have been set work by their schools to complete at home.