Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:27 pm on 5 August 2020.
Well, Llywydd, I thank Jenny Rathbone for her very solid support throughout this for children and the need for those children to be back in school. The science does change in relation to coronavirus. Members of Plaid Cymru have pointed to further studies today, which need to be taken into account, but the bulk of evidence that we have seen is that children don't spread the disease and that they don't suffer from the disease to the extent of others.
Children suffer in other ways. Children under the age of 11 told that they've got to keep a social distance from people who they love and other children who they know suffer through that as well. So, I was very glad on Friday that we were able to say that the evidence tells us that we can lift that restriction on their lives, and it ought to mean that the reopening of schools in September will be easier in that way.
It's not the only part of the picture, as I know Jenny Rathbone knows. There are adults in school we have to think about. Lots of the risks of school are not posed in the classroom; they're posed in the way that people arrive at school and leave school, and all the things that happen around a school. So, headteachers will still be thinking carefully about the fullest extent to which they are able to reopen, including breakfast clubs and after-school clubs and so on.
And in secondary schools we, uniquely in Wales, have the advantage of the fact that children were back in secondary school at the end of June and into July and headteachers have learnt a great deal from that. We're doing a lot with the sector to make sure that that experience is shared and that teachers are able to return to the classroom with children of secondary school age to the fullest possible extent.
We're offering some extra flexibility at the start of the school term to allow people to make adjustments in those first couple of weeks, and then our aim is to have as many children back for as long as possible, because that is in their interest, as our own children's commissioner, as well as the children's commissioner in England, have so very powerfully articulated.