Bridget Phillipson – 2022 Comments About 310,000 Children Being Out of School

The comments made by Bridget Phillipson, the Shadow Education Secretary, on 11 January 2022.

Schools are facing a renewed wave of Covid chaos with staff and pupil absences rising sharply. Yet the government is still dragging its feet on the action needed to keep kids learning.

Thousands of schools are lacking any ventilation support leaving children learning in freezing classrooms, Ministers are unable to say how many people have responded to their teacher volunteer drive and hundreds of thousands of secondary pupils haven’t had their first vaccine. It is incompetent, complacent, and inadequate.

Ministers must now step-up to secure our children’s learning and their futures, with a serious plan to tackle workforce absences and ventilate schools to keep children learning together in class.