Letters: Churches have risen to the challenge of lockdown

Back to schools

Sir: I share Lucy Kellaway’s enthusiasm for seeing school-life return and inequality gaps closed (‘A class apart’, 20 June). I was also glad that she debunked the myth that teachers have been on holiday during lockdown. It doesn’t feel like a holiday to me, as I sit contemplating a set of essays, the second set of predicted grades of the year and my annual Ucas references, not to mention daily work postings, live sessions on Microsoft Teams, Zoom staff meetings and a long list of emails.

Where we depart is at Lucy’s call for a return to school at all costs, rather than the ‘blended learning’ approach she decries. Having heard the Prime Minister seeking to unsettle Keir Starmer with his question about whether schools are safe, I was pleased Mr Starmer kept his counsel.

I was in my school last week. Owing to the Herculean efforts of the staff and the fact that just 116 of 1,600 students were in attendance, I can report that it felt ‘safe’. I cannot imagine it will feel this way if the government maintains its insistence that all students will return full-time in September, without any chance of social distancing. At least a ‘blended learning’ approach gives schools a chance of seeing all students on a rotation basis, developing clear routines again, building pastoral support, and keeping the learning going until a full return seems possible.

Andrew Mitchell
Bourne, Lincolnshire

Disproportionate action

Sir: Lucy Kellaway says she is ‘not a lockdown sceptic who puts the economy above lives’. Nor am I and nor is any other sceptic. From the very beginning, those of us who opposed this disproportionate action warned that it would threaten life rather than save it.

Professor Sucharit Bhakdi of the University of Mainz warned on 18 March: ‘The life expectancy of millions is being shortened.