High Northants school lockdown attendance rates raised with government as teachers say they're being put at risk

Northamptonshire Covid bosses have raised concerns over high lockdown school attendance rates with the Department for Education.

Yesterday (Thursday, December 7), we told you how some schools in Northamptonshire are more than 50 per cent full, causing anger from parents, teachers, unions and headteachers. One headteacher had been forced to change her policy because of the 'overwhelming' number of children attending.

The rise in pupils has been blamed on the government's widening of the criteria for critical workers and the number of parents who cannot face home schooling through a second national lockdown.

Now the group of senior health and civic bosses that oversees the Northants' response to the pandemic has spoken to the DfE to pass on concerns from local schools.

A spokeswoman said: "We are aware that some primary schools are seeing an increase in the numbers of requests for critical workers children to attend school.

This is due to the expansion of Department for Education (DfE) list of key workers list compared to the March lockdown.

We have raised this change with DfE and will continue to discuss the implications of this on schools with them and our school heads. We would expect Northamptonshire education settings to follow the current national DFE guidance in the meantime."

At this afternoon's countywide coronavirus press conference, Northamptonshire County Council Covid education cell lead Paul Andrews said that there had been a misinterpretation of the Government rules, and that closing schools was not done to protect those attending but to stall transmission and limit the number of contacts.

He added: "Critical workers should keep their children at home if they can.

"There's no limit on numbers and schools should not limit attendance to those groups. As we have done throughout the pandemic in Northamptonshire, it's about us taking collaborative responsibility.

"I think schools have done a great job this week. It's been a phenomenal effort."