Students with autism and special needs are very anxious about returning to the classroom

From: Daniel Burton, Battle Road, St-Leonards-On-Sea
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I am sure that your readers are aware that most of the schools have already returned, and colleges are due to return next week. As a media student with autism and special needs, I am pleased that education establishments are reopening and students will be returning full-time, unlike last academic year when we had a partial return.

During the last academic year, it was very difficult when support staff were having to self-isolate with the pingdemic, and that we were working with support staff that weren’t used or trained to support students with additional needs. I know that some professions were exempt from self-isolation if pinged by Track and Trace, such as food supply, emergency service workers, waste, border control and local government etc.

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Sadly, teachers and support staff were never excluded from self-isolation if in contact with somebody with coronavirus. I personally believe that this policy that the Government introduced made the life of students with disabilities etc, much more difficult. I am sure that you are aware, that students with special needs find it easier to work with members of staff that they know and have trust in, and the staff are much more lightly to know their educational needs. This is very important when supporting disabled students.

I personally believe that teachers and support staff that are not double vaccinated, should still be allowed to go to work. Instead, individuals who haven’t been double vaccinated should be made to take a daily coronavirus test. Perhaps, this should have to be a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, due to these being more accurate.

I know that students with autism/special needs are very anxious about returning to the classroom, due to the uncertainty about what support we will get, and if teachers and support staff who haven’t been double vaccinated will be required to self-isolate if pinged or contacted by NHS Test and Trace. I am concerned that if the pandemic gets worse, will double vaccinated individuals be made to self-isolate if in contact with somebody who has Coronavirus. If this is the case, I am hoping that teachers and support staff will be exempt, but I can’t see the Government changing its policy and basically adding teachers onto the “critical workers” list. I believe that they should be.

The Government talk about the importance of education and that everyday counts, but they still won’t protect teaching/support staff that work with additional needs students. As a result, students with special needs have experienced increased anxiety, which I am disappointed about.

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I am so concerned about the situation that I am going to be writing to both Sally-Ann-Hart the MP for Hastings and Rye, who is also the deputy chair on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on SEND. I will also write to the Department for Education.

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