Updated guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from coronavirus (COVID-19)

On 22 June, the Government set out a series of steps for further relaxing shielding guidance which will come into effect on 6 July and 1 August, taking into account that coronavirus (COVID-19) infection rates have decreased significantly over the last few weeks.

From 1 August, the Government will be advising that shielding will be paused. From this date, those people previously shielding are advised to adopt strict social distancing rather than full shielding measures. Children who are clinically extremely vulnerable can return to their education settings if they are eligible and in line with their peers.

Where possible children should practice frequent hand washing and social distancing. The Public Health England guidance for people who are shielding has been updated to reflect the changes.

The full guidance can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19/guidance-on-shielding-and-protecting-extremely-vulnerable-persons-from-covid-19

Thousands of children to benefit from free meals and activities during summer 2020

The Government’s Holiday Activities and Food programme will support up to 50,000 disadvantaged children across 17 local authority areas and help them to stay healthy and active this summer. Ten providers were successful in their bid for the programme, and each organisation will deliver at least four weeks of free activities and healthy food during July and August 2020.

The full news story can be found here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-children-to-benefit-from-free-meals-and-activities

Update on the educational settings status form

Thank you for completing this daily return. Your data helps us build a national picture of educational provision so that we can focus support more effectively, monitor the impact of the virus, and ensure children are safe.

As of today, we have removed a further question from the daily return to help minimise the time needed to complete it. We have replaced the question regarding pupils or students eligible to attend across all year groups and you will now only be asked how many students or pupils are on roll in each of the priority year groups.

Over the coming days we will begin automatically populating selected parts of the return from the previous day to reduce the time to complete.

The educational settings form can be found here:

https://form-sso.education.gov.uk/service/report-coronavirus-formjunj