Chamber and committees

There is an exception to the travel restrictions for work purposes, and also for accessing, providing or receiving education or training. This means education or training both in formal education establishments and elsewhere. The Scottish Government recognises the need for people to undertake essential travel for the purposes of training (both work-related and other training) where this cannot be undertaken at home. When local authority areas have entered into protection levels 3 or 4, we would ask that online approaches are considered in the first instance when providing services or training. We would urge anyone who is required to travel for essential purposes to take all necessary precautions and avoid car sharing where possible.

We do not hold information on pupils and teachers who have contracted Covid-19 in schools.

Information on the number and percentage of positive cases among people who report working in education/childcare, by week, is reported in the PHS weekly statistical report - https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/ (see table 9).

Information on the number of positive cases among children of educational age, by week is reported here: https://beta.isdscotland.org/find-publications-and-data/population-health/covid-19/covid-19-statistical-report/25-november-2020/dashboard/ (see ‘trend charts’ and select ‘cases and testing among children and young people’).

Information on the number of pupils who have been identified as Covid-19 cases in Term 1, by week can be found here: https://publichealthscotland.scot/downloads/covid-19-infections-among-school-pupils-in-scotland/

Planning is underway to build a sustainable workforce to ensure vaccines can be delivered to all, safely and sequentially, as they become available.

Scotland’s Strategic Framework emphasises the commitment to prioritise keeping schools and regulated childcare, including early learning and childcare (ELC), open while ensuring the safety of children and young people and the staff who have worked hard to keep settings open. This recognises the unique impacts of closures on children and young people, and ensures that the virus does not prevent them receiving the best start in life.

While the current public health measures set out in the ELC guidance may have some impact on capacity, we have removed earlier measures that reduced number of children that could be accommodated for in each setting, while maintaining a package of age appropriate public health measures based on the latest expert advice from the Advisory Sub Group on Education and Children’s Issues. The guidance allows services to continue safely, without reducing access even in the highest level tier set out in the Strategic Framework. The recent Delivery Assurance assessment of 1140 with Local Authorities shows that the ELC guidance is not significantly impacting capacity for the sector .

To support the ELC sector the Transitional Support Fund was launched to help day care of children providers in the private, voluntary and not-for profit sectors, including out-of-school care providers, meet the extra costs incurred to comply with public health guidance in response to COVID-19.

All of the guidance and restrictions on childcare provision is based on scientific and expert advice including advice from the Advisory Sub-Group on Education and Children’s Issues.

The most recent advice from the Advisory Sub-Group , published on 30 October, states that given the evidence base they support a move to cohort sizes for children under five in line with those aged 5-12 assuming the level of infection remains low, appropriate surveillance, test and protect and all the other appropriate mitigations and measures are in place.

The guidance on reducing the risks in schools states that in primary schools it may be appropriate to have groups organised according to full-class sizes. Full class sizes in primary schools are governed by Scottish Negotiating Committee for Teachers agreements and regulations, and range from 25-33.

The guidance for the Early Learning and Childcare sector outlines that it would be reasonable for children to be managed in groups up to the size encountered in primary school, for example no more than 25 to 33 children in any one group. The adult to child ratios in the national care standards must continue to apply.

Schools and local authorities retain the main responsibility for arranging remote learning for those at highest clinical risk, including people with cystic fibrosis.

In order to broaden the options available to schools the national e-learning offer provides access to live lessons, recorded lessons and online learning and teaching materials across the Broad General Education and the Senior Phase. https://education.gov.scot/improvement/national-e-learning-offer/

Similarly, schools and authorities are responsible for providing direct advice and support to parents and carers on how to support their child’s learning. In order to complement and support the advice from schools and authorities, the Scottish Government’s Parent Club website provides advice on working from home whilst caring for children, advice on helping children with remote and blended learning as well as links to additional learning resources from third sector organisations which can help to complement the learning activities and advice provided by schools. https://www.parentclub.scot/topics/coronavirus/learning-at-home?age=0. Parent Club also includes tailored advice to parents who are supporting children and young people with additional support needs

https://www.parentclub.scot/articles/supporting-children-and-young-people-with-additional-support-needs

Education Scotland’s Scotland Learns website also provides learning resources and advice and support to parents and carers via online newsletters.

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/scotland-learns/ In addition, the National Parent Forum of Scotland have developed “Nutshell” advice pamphlets on “Learning at Home During Lockdown” and Online Safety. https://www.npfs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/edd/2020/05/NPFS_learning-at-home_E.pdf and

https://www.npfs.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/edd/2020/05/NPFS_online_safety_E.pdf

The Scottish Government guidance on Coronavirus (COVID-19): guidance on reducing the risks in schools takes into account the arrangements for children and young people who may be asked to shield at protection level 4.

All of the guidance and restrictions on childcare provision in response to COVID-19 is based on scientific and expert advice. Scottish Government guidance does not restrict children within one household from attending separate ELC settings. The most recent guidance for Early Learning and Childcare sector states that in order to minimise the number of contacts and risk of transmission, attendance at multiple ELC settings should be reduced as far as possible. Parents and carers are encouraged and should be supported to limit the number of settings their child attends, ideally ensuring their child only attends the same setting consistently.

However, the balance of scientific advice supports the use of more settings where required to ensure high quality childcare is available to children and in support of parents’ need.

During lockdown, when schools and childcare settings were closed, critical childcare was provided for children of keyworkers to allow parents to continue to attend work which was critical to national infrastructure.

Reopening of the regulated childcare sector, including Early Learning and Childcare (ELC), school age childcare and childminding services, has taken place in stages since June. This has reinstated childcare options to working families.

Scotland’s Strategic Framework emphasises that we will prioritise keeping schools and regulated childcare, including early learning and childcare, open while ensuring the safety of children and young people and the staff who have worked hard to keep settings open.

In partnership with local authorities, we have continued to progress the expansion of statutory ELC entitlement to 1140 hours despite the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. 14 councils are already delivering 1140 hours to all families, with more on track to move to full roll-out of 1140 in the new year. All local authorities have been providing at least the 600 hours existing statutory entitlement to families since August.

Most families are also able to continue to access informal childcare, although this is restricted to essential childcare only in level 4 areas. However, this will still enable most families who require informal childcare to support their employment to continue to access this.

We also continue to ensure that families can access up to date information about childcare by regularly sharing information via the Parent Club website.

I refer the member to the answer to question S5W-32875 on 11 November 2020. The answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/28877.aspx .

I recognise that this has been and continues to be an extremely difficult time for students, particularly for those who would normally have taken up employment opportunities during their studies.

Eligible students in Further and Higher Education have continued to access bursary, grant and loan payments throughout the pandemic.

In addition to that, the Scottish Government provided emergency funding earlier this year of £5 million to support students impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. We also provided early access to £11.4 million of Higher Education Discretionary Funds to support students over the summer period and into this academic year. £2M was brought forward for Further Education students at college by the Scottish Funding Council.

I also announced a Digital Inclusion Fund of £5 million to support access to digital equipment and tackle digital poverty.

Finally, the First Minister announced £1.32 million of additional funding to help students deal with the mental health impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

If students are facing financial hardship due to the reduced employment opportunities as a result of Covid-19, they should continue to apply for discretionary fund support from their college or university.