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  • the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has dropped his plan to keep primary schools in 10 boroughs in London Open after pressure from councils are Education correspondent Dan Johnson is with me now, Dan.

  • There's another very swift change of policy here.

  • Explain what's happened.

  • Yes, this decision was only made two days ago when the government, the education secretary, said that primary schools in some parts of London and in some counties around it needed to stay closed next week because of the level of the virus we can see on the map.

  • The areas that were involved, some London boroughs and some areas around there, highlighted in red.

  • But not all primary schools right across London on this caused some concern amongst local leaders because you could see there.

  • The boroughs highlighted in red are the ones which had to keep Children at home, the ones in gray.

  • We're told that pupils would have to come in even though some of those boroughs had been asking to close their schools before Christmas because of the level of the virus.

  • It was pointed out that the levels of the virus didn't seem to match which areas had been told to stay open, which had been told to close Onda.

  • Local politicians highlighted that some Children actually travel across Bora boundaries to actually reach school.

  • So this evening, the education secretary says he has reviewed the decision on the data, and now all the primary schools right across the capital will stay close next week.

  • So that's more than a million primary school pupils now across the Southeast who will be learning from home next week.

  • That's a challenge for parents in terms of child care and home learning.

  • It's frustrating for teachers who have again highlighted that this is complicated late decision making.

  • But the education secretary says his priority has been to try to keep schools open wherever possible, and this is a fast moving situation.

  • But Kevin Williamson got a bit of a reputation last year for making decisions than having to change them.

  • It's only the first day of the year, and he had to change a big one again.

the education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has dropped his plan to keep primary schools in 10 boroughs in London Open after pressure from councils are Education correspondent Dan Johnson is with me now, Dan.

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