#KeepSchoolsOpen

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School closures cause enormous damage to children and their families, with the worst impacts hitting the most disadvantaged.

#KeepSchoolsOpen

UsForThem has been fighting for children since the first ‘lockdown’ and represents tens of thousands of parents.

The evidence for keeping schools closed is weak and the risk to their future, and indeed present, far outweighs the risk of reopening schools’.

83% of children in England were not in school between March and September
They experienced loneliness, and loss of educational progress.Continuity is essential now to ensure they catch up. Disproportionately affects vulnerable children.
Hundreds of thousands” of healthy children now excluded from school
Healthy children are being forced out of schools due to bubble closures. Unsustainable and damaging psychologically and educationally.
Threat of rota-based learning/future school closures
Further national restrictions could threaten physical school attendance again. Schools 'temporarily' closed in March and only opened 6 months later.

Children need:

Cast-iron right to education
In full-time, physical school - without further full school or bubble closures, disruption, or blended learning.
Guarantee
That schools are not subject to further closures. Healthy children must not be forced into unnecessary isolation with ongoing bubble closures.

Remote learning from home is no substitute for classroom teaching even if all children could access it. The fact that they cannot has been thrown into stark focus by a number of recent reports, most notably the Sutton Report. Adults, let alone children, are Zoom weary and children disengage without peers and a teacher who is focused on that subject. The lack of feedback remotely in many settings is de-motivational and is not conducive to inspiring learning.

Government’s instinct that schools must be kept open during this new lockdown was the right one, as was Michael Gove’s reiteration of this position.

Sign the #KeepSchoolsOpen petition:
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