Harrogate schools doing "everything they can" to protect students
Thousands of children across Harrogate and the Yorkshire Dales are heading back to the classroom this week
A Harrogate headteacher has promised that all schools in the district will be doing what they can to make students and teachers feel safe.
It's as children across Harrogate and the Yorkshire Dales head back to the classroom this week, but with little to no Covid restrictions like class bubbles.
Danny Wild, head at Harrogate College, said it's "understandable" that some will feel nervous about the return.
He said: "We're asking all of our students to wear face masks in communal areas and to just be mindful of how other people may be feeling, but when they do enter the classroom environment they will be allowed to remove them.
"It has been an unusual summer as we've come out of lockdown and as much as possible it will feel normalised when the students come back as before we were operating in bubbles but we won't have that anymore.
"There is some nervousness about whether they will feel OK when they come back but we're slowly going to get them back up to speed and we've got a lot of pastoral support around students so any of those who are feeling apprehensive we can be there to help them settle in and progress with their learning."
But with fewer restrictions, some parents, teachers, students and education professionals have raised concerns about whether teaching will be put back online to stop Covid transmissions in schools.
At Harrogate College students will have three days on campus with a fourth as online learning so that the transition, should there be another lockdown, will be easier for staff and students.
"If things were to change and we were forced into some kind of lockdown we would be able to seamlessly move back to online learning so that there won't be any impact on students and the progress they're making. We've really thought about it to minimise that impact."