Covid: Schools in Northern Ireland will not reopen ‘before 5 March’

Arlene Foster says she understands ‘parents are no substitute for trained teachers or lecturers’

Schools in Northern Ireland will remain closed until at least the first week of March, the country’s first minister has said.

Arlene Foster confirmed on Thursday that Stormont ministers would back a proposal brought forward by education minister Peter Weir, which called for current schooling arrangements to stay in place until 5 March at the earliest.  

It means pupils would return to school on 8 March – providing Covid cases continue to fall and the country deems it safe – the same date Boris Johnson has said schools in England are set to reopen.

At present, only vulnerable children and those of key workers are allowed to attend class under NI coronavirus guidelines.

“The Executive has decided that schools will not be able to fully open again before 5 March, this will apply to all educational settings including pre-schools, nurseries, primaries and post-primaries,” Ms Foster said at a press conference.

“Special schools will remain open and mainstream schools will continue to provide supervised learning for vulnerable children and the children of key workers," she added.

“Childcare settings and child minders will also remain open.”

She said she understood that “for so many it will be felt as a disappointment that we cannot yet press the restart button on this and indeed many other aspects of daily life” but that this was the country’s best hope of getting “our young people back into the classroom as soon as possible”.  

“As a working mother of children still in full time education, I have a sense how difficult home schooling can be practically, educationally, and emotionally,” she said. “The kitchen table is no substitute for the school desk and as my children would no doubt agree, parents are no substitute for trained teachers or lecturers.”

Sending a “message to all the young people”, Ms Foster said: “We understand how difficult this is for you, you are coping with much change and much uncertainty and we recognise the new challenges which you are experiencing and we are determined to do all we can to support you as well.

“We know you haven’t had the benefit of in-class teaching for the equivalent of half a school year, since the start of Covid-19, and for those who in exam transition points this has been a particularly difficult time.”

It comes one week after NI moved to extend its current coronavirus lockdown to 5 March, and just a day after Mr Johnson announced schools in England would not reopen until at least 8 March either.  

Ms Foster did not specify if ministers had voted to follow Mr Weir’s phased return approach, in which he suggested not all pupils should return to school on 8 March. Instead, he said, schools should start by allowing just priority groups to return such as children in key exam years.

Mr Weir also urged Executive colleagues to support his request for special school teachers to be prioritised for Covid-19 vaccinations, similar to the current calls being made across England for teachers still going in to work to be given jabs as a matter of urgency.

Ms Foster said at the news event that government ministers had been told earlier that NI’s R rate for new cases had fallen to “well below 1”, and is currently sitting between 0.65 and 0.8.  

However, the number of patients in specialist intensive care is still high, she warned, with the R rate for hospital admissions falling between 0.8 and 0.9, and somewhere between 0.95 and 1.15 for ICU admissions.