All schools should move to immediate remote lessons due to Covid-19 safety, say teaching unions
The NASUWT has written to the Education Secretary to demand a change in coronavirus plans
12:45, 2 JAN 2021
Updated
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Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, urged ministers to close all schools as the UK topped 50,000 Covid-19 cases again.
Teaching unions have demanded the closure of every school in the country after Gavin Williamson caved in to pressure to shut all primaries in London. The Education Secretary was forced into a U-turn after councils threatened legal action over his decision to keep some schools in the capital open. The move raises the prospect that pupils in other areas could also be kept at home, as a leading union insisted that "what is right for London is right for the rest of the country". Dr Mary Bousted, the joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said the Government had corrected "an obviously nonsensical position", adding that ministers must "do their duty" by closing all primary and secondary schools to contain the virus. The union is holding an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the "chaos which is engulfing our schools". It left the Government's policy on school reopenings in tatters just two days after Mr Williamson had resis