In May, Boris Johnson and his hapless education secretary, Gavin Williamson, tried to browbeat primary schools into reopening en masse the following month. It took the footballer Marcus Rashford to then persuade the prime minister to overturn the cruel policy of discontinuing free school meals during the summer holidays. In a statement on Monday, the prime minister said that he considered it a moral duty to get children safely back to school. Establishing trust in the new systems and protocols, particularly in the case of local spikes, will therefore be fundamental to the successful reopening of schools. A request for confidence-building on-demand testing for teachers and pupils was turned down by the schools minister, Nick Gibb.

Source: The Guardian August 24, 2020 17:26 UTC