Essex County Council (ECC) has put together more information on the situation for the return of schools in Maldon district.

As previously reported, Maldon is among the districts where the Government decided on Wednesday, 30 December, to delay the return to school of both primary and secondary school age children. College students will also have a delayed return.

This means remote learning will be in place from the originally intended start of term until 18 January. However, all education settings will remain open for face-to-face teaching for vulnerable children and those of critical workers from 4 January. Exam-year pupils - mostly in Years 11 and 13 - are set to return to school the following week on 11 January.

The full list of districts affected by these new arrangements in Essex includes: Brentwood, Basildon, Epping Forest, Castle Point, Rochford, Harlow, Chelmsford, Braintree, Maldon, Southend on Sea, and Thurrock. Primary schools in Uttlesford, Colchester and Tendring will return as normal on 4 January.

Mass Covid testing at secondary schools and colleges

The delay in the return of secondary school and college students is to allow for the rollout of mass testing on site and the county council is expecting more details on this from the Government in the coming days.

Councillor Ray Gooding, ECC's Cabinet Member for Education, said: "We appreciate the inconvenience that this will cause many parents.

"However, Essex is seeing an exponential increase in Covid rates across all areas and remains in the highest level of local Covid restrictions. We therefore welcome further action to mitigate this as soon as possible."

Dr Mike Gogarty, ECC's Director of Public Health, said: "This move has been deemed necessary in order to roll out the mass testing programme planned by DfE and ensure pupils return to school in the safest possible way in January.

"Due to the amount of people that travel to and from school or college, use public transport and come into close contact on a daily basis as part of the school day, widespread testing measures are welcome to mitigate further spread, particularly of the new variant of Covid-19."

Open letter from the county council to all parents

ECC has also released an open letter to all parents of school age children across the county. This contains details and guidance for every parent for the coming weeks.

You can read that letter through the link here.