The government's message around the return to school by an increased number of pupils centres around the inconsistent access to home learning, particularly by the vulnerable pupil group.
Whilst as a member of the NEU and a former teacher of this particular group, I welcome the focus on educational parity ' it's time for some honesty from Gavin Williamson.
Of course education is important for all young people and yes, we all want to see children back in school but using the poor home environment of vulnerable pupils to attempt to blackmail school staff into compromising safety is low, even by this government's standards.
Ten years of austerity have brought about a worsening in child poverty, a destruction of family support services, a low wage economy and a housing crisis -in short this and the previous government have wrought impoverishment on the very families they now shed crocodile tears for.
The rush to get pupils back to school is designed to allow more workers to return to work in order to reduce the cost of furloughed staff and Universal Credit payments which were vastly underestimated by a Chancellor who did not do his homework.
We may well need get our economy going again, but this cannot and must not be at the expense of public health and safety. We are after all the country with the highest death toll in Europe, not an accolade to be proud of. Let's not add more deaths by opening up schools to more pupils before it is safe to do so.
Alison Chown
Spa Road
Weymouth
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