MOST schools will now be moving to remote learning for the majority of pupils until February half-term, at least.

While teaching unions, medical and scientific experts, as well as Opposition politicians, have been calling on the Government to take decisive action for some time, the handling of this announcement has once again been utterly shambolic.

We all appreciate this is a rapidly moving situation and that decisions have to be made quickly in light of the changing data.

However, it was clear that action needed taking before the start of term and not one day into it.

On January 4, thousands of children went to school and took part in a totally unnecessary and potentially tragic ‘Spread-the-Virus-Day’ - after which most of them are home again!

The Government’s dithering on schools over the last few days has injected chaos into the system and means that the plans thousands of headteachers made over the weekend will once again now need re-writing.

Had the Government worked with schools, as they were urged to do over the Christmas break, this could have been handled so much better.

This calamity follows in the wake of more Government dithering before Christmas over the introduction of the creaky ‘corona-virus-testing’ system.

Schools were given, effectively, not much more than a few working hours to set this up – with all the attendant issues about school staff doubling as paramedics and, possibly, coming into close personal contact with children to help carry out the tests.

And that one came in the wake of Secretary of State Gavin Williamson’s catastrophic blundering over last Summer’s A-level results; failure to provide proper PPE to school staff; failure to deliver the promised ICT equipment to help children learn; and failure to provide guidance on what to do in the event of national tests in England being abandoned (which they now have been!).

All of which begs an important question for British taxpayers: Why is the hopelessly incompetent ‘Spider Boy’ Williamson still being paid vast sums of public money as a Government minister?

Remember, schools have never closed, as is often reported.

School staff have kept going, kept schools open throughout, including the Easter holidays, for vulnerable children and the children of key-workers.

Yet school staff, in daily contact with, sometimes, hundreds of young people and colleagues, are not on the Government’s priority vaccination list.

There is a simple logic as to why they should be: school staff go under... classes or whole schools have to close... parents, including key workers, then have to stay off work.

The Government’s ineptitude, lack of leadership and failure to make decisions over and over again have now thrown the lives of parents into turmoil as well.

We all deserve better than this!

DAVID CAMERON
Fivehead