COVID-RELATED staff absences pushing schools “to the limit” could mean not all classes and year groups can continue, councillors heard.

Schools are “clinging on” and struggling to stay open, said Durham County Council’s head of education and skills Jim Murray.

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He told a council meeting: “Fingers crossed we won’t go back to remote learning. But I do foresee a situation, maybe as early as next week, where schools won’t because of their staffing situation be able to accommodate all year groups or all classes.

“I think we’re really pushed to the limit at the minute.

“I think just before Christmas we had one school closed one day of the 266 schools that we have, which was a pretty good effort really to maintain that through to Christmas.”

On the quality of remote learning, he said: “There is a huge variation across that number of schools.

“I do think our schools have embraced this really well.

“At our top end I would say that if a year group went home on Monday, for example, in some of our schools the children who were at home will be able to watch the lessons that are conducted in the school with the other children at that time.

“And I think the number of schools that we’ve got with that level of ability has increased significantly over time. Having said that, that ignores some of the challenges that we have over things like broadband, connectivity, wifi that you might have in the Dales, not to mention storms.”

He said Department for Education (DfE) expectations had changed, as stated in a recently published document: “That said that any children being sent home, there was an expectation that live learning would happen for them.

“But that’s not necessarily possible everywhere so I think there are some real challenges.

“But we are concerned obviously about staffing levels.

“We had one school closure this week but it wasn’t through staffing. It was a weather-affected thing, which we’re going to have as well in January on top of this.

“I think whilst all the schools are open, I think it’s fair to say that some of them are really, really struggling and they’re clinging on and they’re doing everything that they can to maintain their status as being open.

“And I am worried now, as from March we’ll go into the third year of managing this, about the impact of the stress of all this on school leaders, headteachers and support staff.”

He was speaking at a meeting of the children and young people’s scrutiny committee.

Councillor Olwyn Gunn had asked about the picture in County Durham, schools remaining open and how they were affected by Covid-related staff absences.

The idea of children being taught in “doubled-up” classes was also raised in the meeting.

“As a former teacher I think what we would be talking about in those terms is not actually teaching and learning,” Cllr Gunn added.

“It would be child-minding.”

Mr Murray responded: “We had a meeting with unions this week and that suggestion obviously hasn’t gone down very well. Firstly there are some schools that don’t have the space to be able to double up with classes.”

“And obviously the impact upon infection transmission makes it a ridiculous suggestion on some fronts.

“There will be others that do have the space and can consider those things but then, who does the responsibility lie with?”

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