Air cleaning units for special schools and AP settings

One-thousand air cleaning units will be DfE funded for special schools and alternative provision settings, allowing them to target poorly ventilated areas.

This is for settings where quick fixes to improve ventilation are not possible, and where there are higher-than-average number of pupils attending.

From early December, an online marketplace would be available for schools ineligible for a DfE unit, and will be reasonably priced.

James Bowen, director of policy for school leaders' union NAHT, said: “For many months NAHT has been calling for government to do more when it comes to improving ventilation in schools. We are pleased to see that some action is finally being taken, but it really is hard to fathom why it took so long, especially when other countries seem to have been doing this much earlier.

"If there is a limited supply of the devices, then it clearly makes sense to prioritise the most vulnerable, but this needs to be the start of a national programme where all schools that need them are provided with such devices. We simply cannot work on the basis that only those schools that can afford them are able to access them.”

Meanwhile, government data shows that as of 12 November, 277,838 CO2 monitors had been delivered to state schools out of a target 300,000 for this term.