A petition launched by a Rochester woman calling for schools to close in Tier 4 areas is set to be debated in parliament.

Katie Anderson set up her petition on December 21 after being forced to stay in Suffolk for Christmas, away from her family, and has won the backing of more than 103,000 supporters in just over a week.

Katie explained the reasons behind her petition

Katie, 23, insists closing schools is a simple decision which would have a direct impact on coronavirus rates and make it easier for children and teachers to adjust to remote learning.

Speaking to kmfm, she said some of her friends who taught at school were worried for their own safety, adding: "Obviously children are less likely to be ill from Covid but the teachers aren't really given any precautions. They're still in a room with a lot of people and they can quite easily pick the virus up, and take it home to their family."

While vaccinating teachers might allay their fears, Katie says the consequences of schools being open has a wider impact on society.

"It's about children spreading the virus," she said. "You could have NHS workers at home and the kids, being asymptomatic, could really easily just bring that in and then a key worker will go out and it will spread more that way, or parents could be in at-risk groups and vulnerable to the disease, so just because the kids aren't going to be really ill from it doesn't mean there isn't going to be a wider impact on other people.

"I think the situation currently is a bigger disruption to education - where out of nowhere you might have to self isolate for two weeks. I think if there were things in place and they were saying ok let's do home learning for a month teachers can plan for that.

"I would really like plans in place so that kids can stay at home, be safe and learn from home. I think before there was a really good system where the kids of key workers were going to schools, and that was it.

"You wouldn't have as many people in a classroom and social distancing would be a lot easier. That way everyone would be a lot safer and education would be a lot more constructive."

Writing on her petition page Katie explains it was "heartbreaking" to be apart from her younger brother and sister at Christmas, and said she could not see anyway she would be able to see her family unless schools were closed for two weeks or more.

She said: "My brother's only getting half of his lessons because his teachers for the other ones just aren't coming in, so its been quite disruptive for them anyway with the schools being open."

And she said she was shocked with the amount of support she'd received in a short time, adding: "I didn't think it would do so well, so that's been really encouraging."

View the petition page here.

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