MARK DRAKEFORD was grilled by Sky’s Sophy Ridge for his plans to reopen schools in Wales despite fears it is too soon and puts students and teachers at risk.
Wales’ First Minister, Mark Drakeford said he is confident that the reopening of schools in Wales will be safe as he insisted it is for the benefit of children. Schools in England began to reopen for some pupils in June while many have been offering a limited curriculum online. The plan for school children in Wales is to rotate the number of children in a class with only a third attending school at a time.
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Sophy Ridge asked the first minister: “It’s interesting because you’re obviously taking the view that you’re trying to get all children back into the classroom at least for limited periods. Rotating the children each day.
“It goes against some of the advice from the UK Government where teachers should try and stick to one group of students where possible to avoid being overexposed.
“Do you worry you may be putting teachers at risk by this plan?”
Speaking to Sky News, Mr Drakeford said: “We’ve worked very hard with our trade union colleagues and local authorities.
“They had more than three weeks notice of our intention to reopen schools.
“A huge effort has gone on by teachers and non-teaching staff to make sure schools will be safe.
“I know hundreds of conversations across Wales between parents and headteachers looking to see what has been put in place.
“We are confident that we can so this safely and doing the right for the benefit of children.”
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Mr Drakeford went on to say he was concerned about the messaging deployed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government on coronavirus, warning that the crisis was not over yet.
He said he was offering a “much more sober message” compared to Boris Johnson as the coronavirus pandemic is ongoing.
He told Sky News’ Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “We will continue to do things in the way we’ve done things in Wales – carefully, cautiously, one step at a time.
“We put our efforts into planning first and making the announcements second, not making an announcement and then thinking about how you can make those things happen.”
Asked if that is what Prime Minister Mr Johnson has been doing, Mr Drakeford replied: “My concerns with the UK Government are sometimes less with the substance, where I think we’re all broadly trying to do the same things, I’m more concerned with the messaging, the way things are described.
“Here in Wales I am very keen to continue to say to Welsh citizens, coronavirus has not gone away, it remains something that kills people in Wales every day, if you don’t stay on top of it you will see things going backwards and everything we’ve done together thrown away.
“That’s a very different message to the message across the border where the message seems much more ‘it’s all over and you can go back to doing everything as you did before’.”
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