Bristol College Principle urges government to work more with teachers after new lockdown announcement
Andy Forbes says it would be "much better" if the government worked with them instead of doing things to them
The head of a large college in Bristol has urged the government to work with teachers more - after it was announced schools will have to close as part of the new national lockdown.
Last night's (04/01) announcement came just one day after Boris Johnson had insisted schools were safe.
Earlier we spoke to the Principal and Chief Executive of the City of Bristol College Andy Forbes to find out what the new restrictions mean for them.
"In many ways we've been expecting it the new lockdown as the situation has been deteriorating as we've all seen," he said.
"I suppose the thing that was frustrating was that we hadn't heard this earlier.
"All through Christmas we were told we should go back as normal despite the fact it looked increasingly like that was an unrealistic prospect."
As recently as Sunday (03/01) the Prime Minister insisted in a television interview that schools were safe and should reopen this new year.
In the face of higher coronavirus case rates than have been seen at any point previously during the pandemic, that stance was met with widespread concern, with many primary schools deciding to ignore government guidance and remain closed anyway on Monday (04/01).
That decisino was arguably vindicated when later that day schools were told they should indeed stay closed.
Since then, in the last 24 hours 60,916 new cases have been recorded in the UK which is the highest daily figure on record.
Meanwhile there have been 830 more deaths.
Mr Forbes says the lockdown will have a significant impact on student assessments.
"We've also got some practical issues," he added.
"There's a series of vocational exams that take place in January. BTEC exams not GCSE's or A Levels but BTEC exams.
"And then we had mock A Levels scheduled as well for this month. So we're suddenly having to tear up our plans and try and reschedule exams at short notice."
It's been widely reported that both GCSE and A Level exams this summer will be cancelled with an announcement from the Education Secretary expected tomorrow (06/01), but Mr Forbes says there is still no word on BTEC's.
"As of today we still don't know whether the BTEC exams are going ahead or not.
"At the moment the government is saying they should go ahead despite the fact everything else is in lockdown, so we're urgently trying to find out about that."
He says the suggestion BTEC's could still happen while A Levels and GCSE's will not "makes no sense".
"We just don't understand why they haven't cancelled the BTEC's," he said.
He's now urging the government to work with schools and colleges more to work out the best way forward.
"It's very difficult to get any information direct from the Department for Education," he says.
"You ring up their helplines and you can be waiting for hours for any response because I suspect they're overwhelmed...
"And I think that is an issue. The lack of consultation, the feeling that you're just waiting for announcements to come down, that you don't have any influence over what sort of decisions are being taken, that again is part of the frustration at the moment."
He says it would be "much better" if the government worked with them instead of "doing things to us", through instructions and announcements.
"Certainly we could do with more planning time."