Trafford Council has changed its advice to schools reopening after the Covid-19 lockdown, saying they should now wait until Monday June 15th.
Last month, Trafford said the government’s proposed reopening date of June 1st was “premature” and that children would be able to go back from today, June 10th.
However, following a meeting earlier this week, the council is now advising schools to delay reopening until Monday to give them more time to “review their risk assessments”.
That follows data released by Public Health England earlier this week which showed that the North West had the highest reproduction (R) rate in the country, or average number of secondary infections produced by one infected person.
A spokesperson for Trafford Council said: “Over the last few weeks since the government announced its proposals to extend the opening of schools, we have been working with schools to help them prepare to do this safely within local and complex government guidelines.
“The change to the reproduction number known as the R rate in the North West was announced late on Friday. Our approach to risk assessment and planning has not been based on local R values but instead has been taking into account local factors in order to guide local decisions. We advised schools that they should delay reopening until June 15 so that they had time to consider whether they needed to review their risk assessments ahead of reopening.
“We will give our full support to any school opening before this date or needing more time before allowing in more pupils. Throughout this process the safety of children and staff will continue to be our main priority.”
