From today’s Times:
For John Jerrim, professor of education and social statistics at the UCL Institute of Education, parents need to view their decision as a trade-off. “I think people are massively overestimating the risk of catching the disease and that if you do, something really bad is happening. People aren’t grasping the fact that as of May 1, one in 400 were estimated to have coronavirus and by the start of June that rate will be even lower. Kids have missed one half-term and if they don’t go back they are going to be missing a whole term. By October, November time a second peak could hit and then you will lose a really big chunk of school.
IN YOUR INBOX
Coronavirus update
For a concise rundown of the developments that matter, combined with expert analysis, sign up to receive our dedicated daily coronavirus newsletter
Sign up now
“This is a more ideal window than later in the year because you can hold lessons outdoors in the summer and what’s the alternative? That everyone comes back into school in September? It seems better to work out, in June, what can be done, and treat it as a pilot for returning with social distancing, which may still have to happen.”
Missing chunks of education will penalise disadvantaged children the most.
“There is going to be a widening of educational inequality and economic inequality over the next few years,” Lee Elliot Major, former director of Sutton Trust and now professor of social mobility at Exeter University, said. “Those in middle-class professions still working are accruing wealth. They are forced into saving and will have more disposable income to think about private education where they haven’t before.
“But there has also been an emergence of a community spirit in this crisis and so people might want to support the local state school.”