Schools are struggling to find enough places for all eligible children as demand rises

Schools have pleaded with parents to be ‘completely honest’ about whether they are key workers or not.

Across England, a number of schools are struggling to cope with the demand for school places while also offering remote learning simultaneously. 

It appears the problem is the government’s broad definition of a critical worker, which includes everyone from university staff to those who can claim to be essential to the provision of food and other key goods and services.

The Department for Education explained there is ‘clear guidance’ that children with at least one parent or carer who is a critical worker can go to school. 

They said: “The published guidance on critical worker and vulnerable children is clear about who can still attend school and we expect schools to work with parents to ensure all these children are given access to a place if required.”

However, a primary headteacher in Greater Manchester explained that school staff spent Wednesday ‘interrogating’ parents after receiving 210 applications from key workers, reports The Guardian. At the start of the first lockdown, the school had 30 vulnerable and key worker pupils in attendance out of 500 in total.

The headteacher added: “You’d be hard-pressed to find any job that can’t be fitted into most of the categories.”

Some schools are now ignoring government advice, which explains that children qualify if one parent is a critical worker, and instead are asking that both parents prove they are doing essential jobs they cannot do from home. 

The Greater Manchester head added that some parents are going as far as to make up fake companies to make their case. She said she understood the difficulty for parents, adding: “I’m a teacher and I don’t want to home-school my kids, but at the minute I have to put the virus first.”

At Our Lady of Lourdes primary school in Bury, the headteacher wrote to parents asking them to reconsider. 

They said: “We have been inundated with requests from parents. If we were to accept all the requests as well as the vulnerable children we have asked to come into school, we would have more than 50% of the school population attending school. This goes against the national lockdown of ‘stay at home’.

“I would ask for your complete honesty when applying for a critical worker place. If you are working from home or have another adult in the household who is not a critical worker, I would expect your child to access remote learning from home.”

The Association of School and College Leaders union (ASCL) has urged the government to reconsider the eligibility rules to mean children should only be able to go to school if both parents are key workers.

The director of policy, Julie McCulloch explained that there was a 20% cap on children in school in the first lockdown but there is no similar cap in the nation’s third lockdown.

She explained: “We are certainly receiving some quite worried messages from members around the country, who are finding that if they look at the eligibility criteria for school places, in some cases they might have 50, 60 or even 70% of their pupils who fulfil the criteria.

“At the moment, heads are completely in the dark, not knowing whether they can or should be saying to parents – ‘I’m sorry, we are full.’

“They don’t know what ‘full’ means. If the whole point is to reduce community transmission, if we are ending up with half of children coming into school, it seems unlikely that will be achieved.”

The executive member for children and schools at Manchester City Council, Garry Bridges, explained that schools are experiencing extreme demand for places. 

He said: “In Manchester, we have very high numbers of children in the vulnerable categories as well as high numbers of those who meet the government criteria of critical or key workers.

“Those vulnerable groups of children are some of the most vulnerable children in the country and schools are obviously keen to make sure they have a place offered.” 

Mr Bridges added: “Instead of properly planning for a period of closure, the government plunged schools into closure overnight leaving many questions unanswered. It is now schools, staff, parents and children who are dealing with the consequences.”