Biggest school risk factor “is adults” – so “staff within the school and parents and carers taking children to a school environment”

Parents and guardians are being urged to avoid stopping to chat outside the school gates when dropping their children off when the new term begins.

Health Minister Vaughan Gething said that people need to consider their actions to help stop the spread of coronavirus when schools return full-time at the start of September.

Students across Wales haven’t had access to regular face to face teaching and classes since education facilities were closed in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Online classes and teaching was available throughout the remainder of the academic year. However there have been concerns raised of the long-term impact school closures will have on children, particularly those who are unable to access the online teaching and are in receipt of free school meals.

Guidance on the re-opening of schools recently been released by the Welsh Government includes a series of measures which schools and educational settings are expected to take wherever possible.

This includes enhanced cleaning, ensuring rooms are well ventilated where possible, encouraging frequent hand washing, minimising contact between all individuals wherever possible and making sure that a staff member or student isolates if they, a member of their household, or contact shows symptoms.

At yesterday’s Welsh Government press conference the health minister was asked if there is any advice to parents on whether they should stay and chat after dropping their children off at school.

Mr Gething said he hopes parents will be able move on away from the school and “not gather close together.”

He continued: “Outside the school gates, I’ve been really clear for a significant period of time, as indeed has the education minister, the First Minister, that the biggest risk factor of schools opening isn’t necessarily the children and young people themselves, it’s adults in the wider school community, so staff within the school and parents and carers taking children to a school environment.

“The normal school gate conversation that is social and often really valuable in sharing information, you see mums and dads outside school gates, when you drop the kids off, I certainly do. Well those things are going to be more of an issue because we need staggered times to get people in and out of school.

“It does mean that we’ll want parents to be able to move on away from the school and not to gather close together in the way that we would have been used to even in a cold January.

“So it does still require us to think about the choices we make even as we have a more normal school return in this September compared to the experience we had at the end of June and indeed a significant move on when we close virtually all schools in the country is during the height of the pandemic.”

This message was also echoed an interview England’s Education Secretary Gavin Williamson, who urged parents to “be considerate” at school drop off and pick up times before “getting on with all the tasks of their day”.