Evening Standard comment: School’s still out as online classes step up | Keeping London moving | Hirst’s rainbow of hope

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In an alternative London, the one which existed before coronavirus, this would be the first day of the summer school term.

As it is, this is the moment lockdown really begins to bite on eduction. Exams are cancelled. For some children, there may be no school until September.

Early efforts at home learning before the Easter break will have to become the new normal. So parents and pupils need to know two things. When will it end? And how can they make the best of things in the meantime?

There is no clear answer to the first question.

Mixed messages from the Government have not helped. Over the weekend we heard reports that some classes might be back in three weeks, only for these reports to be denied.

The Education Secretary, Gavin Williamson, says that he wants schools back as soon as possible but that bringing them back early could risk a second wave of infection. Trying to open them rapidly could backfire if parents kept their children away, or some teachers refused to work until they knew it was safe to do so.

But when the lockdown is eased, schools will be among the first things to reopen. In Denmark, some classes are back. In France, President Emmanuel Macron says they could begin to return from May 11, although that date seems to have been plucked from the air.

In Britain, it is hard to imagine schools reopening before June, and even then only some classes would take place.

Primary schools may reopen, and lessons could begin for pupils in years 10 and 12, who are set to take GCSEs and A-levels next year.

It will be the autumn before anything approaching familiar school life returns. So that makes online learning vital.

It would compound the disaster of coronavirus if some children were able to press on with their education while others were left behind. But that’s what’s happening.

A survey by the Sutton Trust charity suggests only a third of children have taken part in online classes — and that private school pupils are much more likely to do so than ones in state schools.

That’s why we welcome the launch today of the Oak National Academy, the first online UK classroom. It’s backed up with plans to give laptops, tablets and 4G access to families who don’t have them. The BBC is providing a new education service too.

It won’t be the same as school. But while classrooms are closed, learning doesn’t have to stop.

Keeping London moving

On Easter Sunday, fewer people used the Underground than on any day since the 19th century — when most of the network hadn’t even been built and bits of it still used steam trains. Some bus routes are no longer charging passengers, to limit social contact.

Staff, keeping the city moving for key workers, have lost their lives to coronavirus. Now Transport for London is having to put some of its staff on furlough. For a transport system set up to cope with massive demand and pressure for growth, it is an extraordinary shock.

London needs its system to survive, which means working out how to pay the bills when no one is paying fares.

Transport bosses are in talks with the Treasury: but Sadiq Khan, facing re-election next year, will need to make some tough choices and justify them in person.

London also needs a system which keeps people safe, as normal life returns. That will take social distancing and perhaps face masks.

Allowing the Tube to go bust is unimaginable: but there is not yet light at the end of the tunnel.

Listen to The Leader: Coronavirus Daily podcast

Hirst’s rainbow of hope

Damien Hirst, Butterfly Heart, 2020
Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved, DACS 2020

Today we have published a new rainbow poster of hope, drawn by the leading artist Damien Hirst.

You can download it HERE to print out at home. It’s a chance to put another eye-catching artwork in your window, after our first rainbow from pop artist Sir Peter Blake.

Thank you to them — as London stands together in hope.

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