Letters: When is a sport not a sport?

Save the children

Sir: Your leading article is correct that the government should have evaluated the detriment caused by shutting schools, against the risk posed by Covid-19 (‘Class divide’, 16 May). This is not a glib trade-off between protecting lives and allowing children to go to school: the predicament foisted on young people will affect their future for decades.

Exams were abruptly cancelled in March. This has left many schools dealing with apathetic individuals. The disparity between disadvantaged and affluent students is widening: middle-class schoolchildren are twice as likely to receive online tuition, and only 8 per cent of teachers in low-income communities report more than three-quarters of work being submitted, compared with 50 per cent in the private sector. The government claims to be ‘following the science’. But it seems that the effect school closures have on curbing the virus is tenuous. If the government explained this, more parents would want to send their children back.

Schools and colleges should reopen for all pupils on 1 June. Given the inordinate harm being inflicted on poorer children, time cannot be wasted.
James Smith
London SE9

On accepting risk

Sir: As a teacher in a comprehensive state school, I and most of my colleagues have no opinion on the opening of schools from an epidemiological perspective. But many of us do want a strong case to be made for the value of schooling alongside the warnings of the health risks taken by returning students to their classrooms. We are proud to serve our communities and we hope that what we do is important enough that accepting some risk to health is worth it. Thank you for making this argument.
Graham Marsh
Cambridge

Heights without depth

Sir: I feel even Hitchcock himself may have agreed with much of Deborah Ross’s assessment of Vertigo (The Heckler, 16 May).