PARENT DECLARATION – JULY 2021

Any reasonable person would agree it’s simply unacceptable that a Government should seek to endanger children through knowingly exposing them unnecessarily to novel virus infections within educational settings, when clear mitigations are available. 

To do so would be indicative of contravening both the spirit and the basic principles of human rights. These are fundamental rights in law of every person within the United Kingdom.

The Department for Education has a duty of care, a moral and legal responsibility to keep all children safe when in their care.

We DO NOT CONSENT to the pursuit of herd immunity via unnecessarily infecting children and young people.

We have watched for a FULL ACADEMIC YEAR our children, school staff and our families being unnecessarily infected and have in-person education disrupted through illness and isolations. We have been subjected to gaslighting and bullied to keep our children attending settings that have not had the sufficient infection control measures necessary to mitigate an airborne pathogen. 

Parents have tried individually (at a local level) and collectively (by reaching out to Government Ministers) to plead for you to FOLLOW THE SCIENCE and use all of the best practice, multi-layered mitigation strategies, observed in use successfully in other countries where in-person education has been made safer and more sustainable.

We have stood by and watched the teaching unions ask for safety mitigations and seen them repeatedly ignored or falsely accused of wanting to close schools.

Parents are being forced to choose between in-person education and the health of their children and household members. Failure to mitigate risk of infection to the lowest practicable level would be in breach of H&S legislation and would be discriminatory to children, their families and school staff. 

Unless the following measures are both funded and implemented for September 2021:

• Reduced class sizes to facilitate social distancing and to met safer ventilation levels within a given space
• Mask use recommended for all ages (unless exempt)
• CO2 monitors, well-maintained through flow and HEPA filters for times when external air movement is poor

We feel that we would have no choice but to use our collective power as parents to act in the best interests of our children and families.

If the above measures are not implemented, we will be left with no choice due to safety issues but to exercise discretion in our PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY to avoid unnecessary exposure to infection and refuse to return our children to in-person education. 

If we are forced to take this course of action we would expect to be fully supported by schools in providing education at home and look for your confirmation on this point.

Fines and punitive measures including coerced off-rolling are not acceptable to us given the circumstances we now find ourselves in. 

To be clear we are not refusing to send our children to be educated. We are refusing to send our children to places that are inherently unsafe and endanger health due to lack of effective mitigation. 

We want in-person education to be safe, sustainable and fair to all.

You will no doubt appreciate that time is of the essence in this regard and we look forward to your detailed reply to our correspondence addressing our concerns within 20 days of receipt. 

Regards,

SafeEdForAll (www.safeedforall.com and the undersigned parents (please add name and location)