The Department for Education has been forced to publish documents assessing the impact of reopening schools during the pandemic on different groups of staff.
Four equality impact assessments, prepared in 2020, have now been released following legal action by the NASUWT teaching union.
The “important” documents could have helped heads left to carry out their own risk assessments, and it is “wrong” that they have only been published now, a school leaders’ union has said.
The four assessments, prepared monthly between May and August 2020, discuss the possible impacts of the government’s Covid policy in schools - including the full reopening in September 2020 - on disabled people, older teachers, parents and black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) pupils and school staff.
The NASUWT teaching union said that the government had repeatedly refused its requests for the assessments to be published.
James Bowen, director of policy at the NAHT school leaders’ union, said that the documents contained “important and highly relevant information” that would have been useful to schools if they were published at the time.
The four documents contain information assessing the impact of various government education policies at the start of the Covid pandemic on groups with “protected characteristics” - such as race, gender and age.
As an example, one of the documents points out that the full return to schools in September 2020 could disproportionately affect school support staff. It states: “We do expect that other workforce in schools, such as teaching assistants and catering staff, may have an older age profile and so those staff may be more at risk from a return to school.”
Risks to school leaders
School leaders also “may be more at risk based on their age alone”, one document states.
It adds: “In some settings, leaders may be less likely than teachers to come into direct contact with children and young people who can’t observe social distancing, however, this may not be universally true across settings.”
Another of the documents discusses the risks to students returning to school on public transport. It states: “For BAME individuals, on average, a higher percentage of trips are made by public transport (in particular by bus), suggesting they may be more at risk. There would need to be adequate transport arrangements, in terms of volume of public transport, and safety measures, to ensure children and their families are kept safe when they return to school.”
‘Victory’
Dr Patrick Roach, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union, said it was a “victory” that the assessments had been published.
He added: “The government must be held accountable for its decision-making and for demonstrating whether or not its decisions will lead to widening disparities on the grounds of an individual’s race, gender, disability or on other grounds.
“For too long, the government has taken the view that it can duck its legal obligations on equality, which has encouraged many school and college employers to take the view also that the Equality Act is irrelevant, that it doesn’t apply or that it won’t be enforced.”
James Bowen of NAHT said the documents would have been helpful for schools if published at the time, and that the union had called on the government to be “open” about the information it was using to inform policy throughout the pandemic.
Schools left to carry out own risk assessments
Mr Bowen said: “These documents clearly contain important and highly relevant information and it is wrong that they have been withheld for such a long period of time.
“It is important to remember that, at the time these were written, schools were being asked to carry out their own risk assessments and to consider the public sector equality duty in their own contexts, the information in these documents would have almost certainly helped them in those tasks.”
A DfE spokesperson said: “At every stage of the pandemic we have balanced the risks from the virus with the impact that being out of the classroom has on young people’s education and wellbeing.
“As schools opened for all pupils in September 2020, the chief medical officers were in agreement that a lack of schooling increases inequalities, reduces the life chances of children and can exacerbate physical and mental health issues.
“Our own impact assessment concluded that for all young people, any negative impacts of returning to school were outweighed by the positives.”
