Coronavirus Update – 24th November 2020

The Department for Education (DfE) is continuing to update on the government’s response to COVID-19 (Coronavirus).

Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announces the COVID-19 Winter Plan

Yesterday, the Prime Minister announced the COVID-19 Winter Plan setting out how national restrictions will be lifted on Wednesday 2 December. On this date, England will move back into a regional, tiered approach. There will be 3 local tiers of restrictions:

• Tier 1: Medium alert
• Tier 2: High alert
• Tier 3: Very High alert

These rules will apply from 00:01 on Wednesday 2 December. Current national restrictions must be followed until this time.

Since the summer, the government’s priority has been to ensure that education remains open and in England, education settings will continue to remain open in all tiers. Children’s life chances, as well as the long-term health of the economy, depend upon children and students continuing to learn and develop vital skills, and adults being able to train and retrain to meet the changing needs of industry and the economy.

Thanks to the enormous effort by early years practitioners, teachers, lecturers and support staff who have worked so hard to implement protective measures, 99% of schools have been open throughout the term so far, with millions of children and young people benefitting from attending their early years setting, school or college throughout the term.

We will be updating our guidance in the coming days to reflect how settings should operate under the Local Restriction Tiers.

Help with accessing and buying resources to deliver remote education

We have published guidance for schools on accessing and buying educational resources for remote education during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. This guidance provides a list of resources and initiatives to support schools to plan and deliver remote education. This includes a range of DfE-funded curriculum support as well as a list of DfE-approved frameworks, which schools may find helpful.

Department for Education guidance

Our guidance to support education providers, local authorities and parents during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak can be accessed using the links below:

• Guidance for early years and childcare providers
• Guidance for schools
• Guidance for further and higher education providers
• Guidance for local authority children’s services
• Guidance for holiday or after-school clubs and other out-of-school settings