TEACHERS in Swindon are ‘frightened’ of next week's planned return to school, according to the town’s union rep.

Swindon’s National Education Union representative Debbie Brown – a teacher herself – was speaking on behalf of 1,400 members of school staff in the town.

Primary school pupils in reception and years 1 and 6 are set to return to the classroom on Monday and Ms Brown told the Adver she has been contacted by many worried teachers.

She said: “Some newspapers are trying to push the narrative that the unions are letting the education down.

“I can tell you now that my email inbox and my phone is fit to burst.

“We have teachers who are frightened, anxious. They’ve got their own families, they’ve got vulnerable people in their own families.

“They are concerned that they are going back into a workplace where they’re going to have a ‘bubble’ of a maximum of 15 children, but what the staff don’t know is, for those 15 children, are their families are going back to work as well? Who are they meeting with? Are they going on public transport?

“It’s not just the children that they are mixing with, it’s the ripple effect from each individual child that we are going to have to be dealing with.”

And when it comes to what these classrooms might look like, Ms Brown shared concerns about the lack of equipment and hands-on activities available.

She added: “If you’re looking at young children, four or five-year-olds, their classroom environment has toys, Lego, soft play areas. Anything that cannot be washed regularly has had to be taken out of that classroom.

“It’s bright, it’s interactive, it is full of those kind of resources because that is what we are expected to provide those children. So what are these children going to have?”

Speaking at the daily briefing on Sunday, prime minister Boris Johnson remained firm on the government’s plan to reopen some classrooms on June 1.

He said the government was being “deliberately cautious” and that a final decision would be taken on Thursday

Mr Johnson added: “We then intend from June 15 for secondary schools to provide some contact for Year 10 and Year 12 students to help prepare for exams next year, with up to a quarter of these students in at any point.”