PRITI Patel revealed she was given a dressing down at parents evening as she admitted home schooling has been challenging.
The normally hard nosed Home Secretary was given a ticking off by teachers of her son at an online parents evening this week.
She told HOAR: “I think I might need to spend a bit more time with my son to help his homework going forward.”
But she said pupils are doing “heroic work” learning from home, while admitting she could do more to keep on top of son Freddie’s work.
Boris Johnson hopes to be able to reopen schools on March 8th, and has pledged to give parents and teachers two weeks notice.
However the reopening is still dependant on the state of the pandemic.
Ms Patel added: “Homeschooling is a challenge for every family it really is.
“I’d really just like to thank the teachers and pay tribute to all schools for the remarkable work that they’re doing and just to say to all pupils around the country really keep going.
“I think they themselves are doing heroic work looking at technology, trying to bolster their learning at this difficult time.
“Of course they themselves are looking forward to going back and that is something that obviously will come in the months ahead.”
It comes as MPs will debate proposals for getting students back into schools at the end of the month.
Speaking during the business statement in the Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg said proceedings on Thursday February 25 will include “a general debate on the proposal for a national education route map for schools and colleges in response to the Covid-19 outbreak”.
Speaking in the Commons during a statement on the vaccine rollout, Conservative former minister Mark Harper called for “all restrictions to be relaxed” once the first nine groups of the Government’s vaccination programme have been inoculated.
Mr Harper, who chairs the Tory lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, said: “I’m very pleased the Government has agreed that once the first four cohorts have their vaccine and it becomes effective from March 8 we can start unlocking the economy.
“Does the minister agree with me that once the first nine groups have been vaccinated – accounting for 99% of deaths and about 80% of hospitalisations – that will be the right time for all restrictions to be relaxed so that we can get back to living as normal, get our children back to school and the economy fully open?”
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi replied: “No-one more than he and the Prime Minister want to get the economy back open and functioning as we would expect it to be as soon as possible.”
Mr Zahawi said early March is when “protection really kicks in” for those vaccinated in mid-February, adding: “March 8 is the plan to reopen schools and then gradually reopen the economy.”
Meanwhile, Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia, said the rate of the fall in Covid-19 cases made him optimistic that restrictions on households mixing could be lifted as soon as next month and that pupils could be back to school before the Prime Minister’s March 8 target date.
He told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “I think there could well be a case for opening schools sooner – I particularly think schools for children under 11 years of age, where the evidence that they contribute to the spread of the epidemic in the wider population is a lot lower.
“I would certainly hope to see schools, and particularly junior schools, opening relatively soon.”
