Routine protective measures in schools, early learning and childcare (ELC) settings and daycare of children's services: child rights and wellbeing impact assessment

4. If a negative impact is assessed for any area of rights or any group of children and young people, can you explain why this is necessary and proportionate? What options have you considered to modify the proposal, or mitigate the impact?

It is recognised that making these changes to protection measures results in a change in risk, which may impact on some children more than others and that some children or young people will feel more anxious than others, resulting in disproportionate impacts on these individuals. However, these impacts need to be balanced against any intended positive impact on the health and wellbeing of children. The regularly reviewed and updated guidance for schools and childcare services has helped to keep the transmission within these settings low.

The body of evidence on the role of children in transmission continues to point to household transmission as the primary driver. The risk of harm to children from COVID-19 infection is low and severe health outcomes for all age groups are far less likely to arise while vaccination rates are high and the current variant is less severe, the clinical advice and data support the move to routine measures in schools and ELC settings in a proportionate and responsible manner.

It is not yet known what the overall impact of these changes for children will be on child health. But the challenges to child health services and recovery of these provide a chance to reflect on how our paediatric health services are designed, our child health workforce is supported and strengthened, and our parents are empowered to take action to promote their children's health and wellbeing.

Routine protection measures within schools and childcare settings will be kept under review. The measures relating to self-isolation, good hand hygiene and surface cleaning in ELC and school environments and on dedicated school transport, good ventilation and CO2 monitors, physical distancing between adults (and between adults and school aged children and young people wherever possible), the use of face coverings in certain parts of the school or ELC and dedicated school transport combined with active surveillance and ongoing outbreak management mean that, as far as possible, the use of mitigations will be aligned with those deployed elsewhere in society. Amongst other benefits, such consistency will be an important factor in helping people to understand what is required of them as well as encouraging adherence.

As noted above, the ending of the regular asymptomatic testing programme in schools and in wider society may cause anxiety for some children and young people who have to date been testing regularly. However, our judgement, based on expert public health advice, is that it would not be proportionate to retain asymptomatic testing in schools only to manage any such anxiety. As noted above, we propose to help mitigate any such impacts by ensuring appropriate communications around the strong public health basis for the decision, and setting out clear advice on how to minimise risks as we move into a new phase of the pandemic. It will still be open to local Health Protection Teams to make use of asymptomatic testing to manage outbreaks in schools and other settings if, in their expert judgement, it is necessary.

Mitigations

Scotland's updated Strategic Framework notes that current evidence provides confidence that the booster vaccination programme has greatly strengthened population immunity against severe illness. Additionally it also notes the number of mitigating actions following the relaxation of some protective measures in March 2022, which includes

• an annual booster programme,
• the consideration of a Scottish Vaccination and Immunisation Programme (SVIP),
• continued public health surveillance programmes,
• implementing of the commitments to improve care and support for people with long COVID, and
• publications in Spring 2022 of a Test & Protect transition plan and a new COVID-19 Outbreak Management Plan.

The routine protective measures that remain in place in schools and ELC settings are set out in the summary section of this document.

Schools and ELC settings are considered to be low risk settings for outbreaks due to the relatively lower vulnerability of children to harm arising from COVID infection, and the high vaccination coverage of the working age adult population.

Guidance and sharing good practice

From the outset of the pandemic, we have been clear that local authorities and schools should continue to prioritise personalised support to meet the individual, physical and emotional needs of all children and young people.

Education Scotland put in place a wide range of support for families, including specific resources to support families of children with complex additional support needs. This support is set within a model of inclusive learning policy and practice, which is kept under constant review with robust tracking and monitoring of learning and wellbeing. Education Scotland have maintained high levels of engagement with all local authorities throughout the pandemic to provide support and to gather intelligence on the impact on learners e.g. where schools have been closed/partially closed.

This offered an opportunity to share good practice and encourage collegiate working. HM Inspectors of Education have also carried out a series of thematic reviews and published these reports to share learning and support improvement.

As we move into a calmer phase of the pandemic, Education Scotland are building on this approach in the context of pupil progress. This will lead to particular arrangements for support at school and local authority level with the aim of improving performance. This includes a comprehensive package of health and wellbeing support. Additionally HM Inspectors will carry out a series of recovery visits from March 2022, engaging in professional dialogue to support continuity of learning, wellbeing of staff and learners and safeguarding.

Support for workforce to address children's needs

Our guidance is clear that schools and local authorities should prepare and maintain clear, strong contingency plans for providing educational continuity in the event of a local outbreak. Education Scotland and local authorities must ensure schools, learners and parents are aware of the National eLearning Offer (NELO) to support the curriculum including live, recorded and supported resources for both the BGE and Senior Phase. The National eLearning Offer continues to expand support young people learning in school or from home.

Pupils miss out on time to interact and socialise with their peers. We know from the LockdownLowdown survey, commissioned by Scottish Youth Parliament, Youth Link and Young Scot, that school closures earlier in the pandemic had an overall negative impact on the mental wellbeing of pupils, and further time in isolation could compound this. The Routine Protective Measures aim to minimise in-person learning disruption while protecting the health and safety of the school population at large.

Additionally, the provision of Scottish Government funding to local authorities for free school meals protects the health and wellbeing of children and young people and reduces the impact of poverty on thousands of families across the country. Latest Scottish Government Data on eligibility for free school meals suggests that around 358,000 children and young people are currently in receipt of a free school meal.