The unending confusion at the Department for Education

It used to be the case that the only things that were certain in life were death and taxes. To that list we can now add unending turmoil and confusion at the Department for Education. Today Gavin Williamson U-turned on the government’s previous pledge to keep schools open, announcing that a number of schools in Covid ‘hotspots’ would not be going back as planned next week.

Primaries in some areas – including a slightly random patchwork of London boroughs – will not reopen next week. Those in lower tiers and some Tier 4 areas will start term as planned. The following week, years 11 and 13 will return to secondary schools, and from the week beginning 18 January, all year groups will return. The Education Secretary also said testing would begin ‘in earnest’ in the second week of term, ‘with those who are in exam years at the head of the queue’.