A Kingston head teacher does not think schools will be able to fully reopen after the February half-term.

Sean Maher, head teacher at Richard Challoner School in New Malden, warned that it will be a “long road back to normal”.

He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “To get children back into school safely, to catch up with their learning, to make sure that exam grades are given fairly and reasonably, to make sure that we plug all the gaps that have opened up, both the social gaps and mental health gaps and the academic gaps, means there’s a long road back to normal – whether it’s safe or not.

“And we’re still not there on the safety front. There’s still lots and lots of that bridge to cover. ”

Surrey Comet: Richard Challoner School in Kingston. Richard Challoner School in Kingston.

Crucially, he thinks that for schools to open without disruption, teachers and support staff, who cannot social distance from children because of their care needs, need to be vaccinated.

“If you want to get schools back and staying open, the only way you can do that is by vaccinating staff.  Because the big problem you have is that when transmission rates are still high, inevitably staff will get COVID and they will be in your school. And inevitably, that means disruption to learning.”

He concluded: “I can’t see that schools will be open fully after half-term. I can’t see how that happens. I’d love it to happen. I want school open, I want children in, I want my staff in, I just want to get back to normal, but I will not put anyone at risk.”

He says there needs to be a timeline for decision making to help reopen schools.

This would involve meeting key performance indicators such as the local R rate being below a set number, and having testing facilities set up, to decide when some or all children can be brought back into school safely.

However, he is critical of the way the Department for Education has not communicated to headteachers how this will happen, and cites previous issues with the lack of information provided about exams.

“Head teachers have been begging since September to have a backup plan if exams were not to go ahead. But all we got was the exams are going ahead. Well, look what’s happened. The exams are not going ahead.”

He said staff have had to develop a “gallows sense of humour” to cope with the ever-changing and sometimes desperate situation schools are put in.

“We kind of laugh because it is so incompetent,” he said.

He refers to the now infamous interview when the Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Andrew Marr, the day before primary school pupils were due to go back after the Christmas holidays, that schools were safe and parents should send their children back to school where they were open.

That evening, it was announced that all schools would be closed.

“[Schools] are safe for pupils. Because we all know that people under the age of 18 are far less likely to have complications from COVID. But they’re not safe for everybody else, because those young people are going to come in and spread the disease amongst their families, amongst their elderly relatives, amongst the teaching staff,” said Mr Maher.

“So of course, while it might be safe for the children, schools are not safe, because they’re vectors of transmission.”

He criticises the government for its “lack of planning and lack of communication,” describing the situation as an “omnishambles.”