Keeping schools open during COVID-19

All coronavirus guidance for educational settings can be found in one place on GOV.​UK. We recommend that you sign up to receive updates directly from gov.uk

Risk assessments

Risk assessments should directly address the risks associated with COVID-19 and outline the control measures that leaders are putting in place to mitigate and control risk for pupils and staff in order to keep school open safely.

We’ve created a risk assessment template that we hope supports you in undertaking an audit of risk. This is offered as a supportive tool: there’s no expectation that you use this specific template but we do urge to reflect on the content. You can and should feel empowered to amend it to meet your school’s specific needs.

In addition, the local authority recommends that leaders update their risk assessments for pupils with social, emotional and mental health needs.

Please see the health and safety page for more information about risk assessments.

Local outbreaks of Covid-19 and contingency planning

The Government asked all councils to produce a plan to outline how they intend to manage the spread of COVID-19. The MK Outbreak Control Plan is ours. It sets out some of our priorities to prevent local outbreaks and explains how we will respond to positive cases at speed. We’ve also set up an outbreak prevention group, made up of representatives from all ‘category one’ responders in MK, and will keep working closely with Public Health England.

As school leaders it’s important that you are aware of the MK Outbreak Control Plan. You will want to refer to it when you’re thinking about contingency planning from September - to ensure continuity of education in the case of a local outbreak.

There’s also some business continuity information for school settings under the Risk and Resilience section of the main MKC website. This includes some templates that have been designed to support you in formulating your own business continuity plans.

If you haven’t already seen it, you may find Council Leader, Pete Marland’s weekly COVID-19 update useful.