As this month’s Vision magazine is published, children will be heading back to school, students will be heading to university, and many young people will be starting sixth form, apprenticeships and new jobs.
It’s been a hugely difficult and challenging couple of years for these young people, with their education disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, and much of their learning taking place online, or in carefully socially distanced bubbles in the classroom.
Fortunately, now we have moved to Stage Four of the Government’s roadmap for unlocking, the Department for Education announced that Covid restrictions will be also be lifted in schools, in line with the general relaxing of restrictions for England. As such, social distancing will no longer be necessary and schools will not need to stagger start and finish times, though schools can continue their individual existing arrangements as they wish.
School bubbles have also been removed, while it will be necessary only for children with a positive COVID-19 test or symptoms to isolate while the daily contact testing trial will be used for their classmates in order to ensure they do not miss school unnecessarily.
Young people heading to university are being encouraged to be double vaccinated as soon as possible, but currently no universities within the UK will require incoming students to receive the COVID-19 vaccine before returning to university in the Autumn. However, if those students are unvaccinated, freshers’ week clubbing might be off the agenda as the Government is planning to make full vaccination a condition of entry to nightclubs and other venues where large crowds gather.
Wherever the young folk of your family are heading this autumn, be assured the pandemic (and their teachers) have made them resilient, independent learners, and that the next stage will be all the sweeter for hard times endured.
