Prioritise teachers, school and childcare staff for Covid-19 vaccination
508,830 people signed this petition to the UK Parliament after it opened on 20 October 2020; it closed on 20 April 2021. The Government responded on 23 February 2021. MPs debated it in Westminster Hall on 11 January 2021.
The petition
The petition's creator is not named in the Petitions site's published record. Quoted in full from the UK Parliament petitions site.
Prioritise teachers, school and childcare staff for Covid-19 vaccination
Advice from the JCVI on the priority groups for a Covid-19 vaccine does not include school/childcare workers. This petition calls for these workers, who cannot distance or use PPE, to be kept safe at work by being put on the vaccine priority list when such a list is adopted into government policy.
Inclusion of school and childcare staff on the priority list should also:
* provide more protection for children and their families
* reduce the chance of settings being closed for 2 weeks and working parents having to take time off work
* ensure continuity of education for children
* allow schools to return to normality faster, having a positive impact on children’s mental health
* reduce the chance of NHS workers having to stay at home with children who are isolating due to closures
The Government's response
The Government published its response on 23 February 2021; the petitions site lists the Department of Health and Social Care as responsible. Its summary:
The government is working hard to ensure everyone who is prioritised based on clinical risk, as set out by the JCVI receives a COVID-19 vaccine as soon as reasonably possible.
The opening 354 words of the 641-word response:
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is the independent medical and scientific expert body who advise the UK Government on prioritisation for all vaccines. The committee’s membership is made up of practising clinicians and scientists, as well as individuals from academia who consider the impact of COVID-19 and provide advice on prioritisation of a COVID-19 vaccine in the population.
For phase one of the vaccine roll-out, the underlying principles at the forefront of the JCVI advice are to reduce mortality and morbidity, and to protect the NHS and social care systems, including the frontline staff working in these areas. Given the current epidemiological situation in the UK, all evidence indicates that the best option for preventing mortality in the initial phase of the programme is to directly protect persons most at risk.
Having identified age as being the biggest determining risk factor to increased mortality, COVID-19 vaccinations have been prioritised to care home residents and staff and those over 80, followed by health and social care workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors. Further information on prioritisation can be found via the following link: www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-the-green-book-chapter-14a. If a teacher, school or childcare worker is identified as being in one of the at-risk cohorts, they will be contacted by the NHS at the appropriate time based on JCVI advice. It is estimated that when phase one concludes by the end of Spring 2021, twenty-five million people will have been offered the COVID-19 vaccine.
To enable this to happen, the National Health Service (NHS) has been working alongside its health and social care partners to ensure vaccinations can be administered safely and effectively as part of the largest vaccination programme undertaken in its history. Following months of comprehensive planning, more than 250 hospital hubs, 1,028 GP-led local vaccination services, 130 high street pharmacies and 50 large-scale vaccination centres are currently in operation across England. This has been a monumental effort by all those involved which has allowed over 9 million of the highest priority individuals to receive their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to date.
Read the full response on the petitions site.
Where the signatures came from
Signatures came from 650 constituencies on the boundaries used until the 2024 general election. The largest number, 2,327, came from Mid Sussex.
507,539 of the signatures were from the UK and 1,291 from elsewhere, by the location signers gave.
| Constituency | Signatures |
|---|---|
| Mid Sussex | 2,327 |
| Twickenham | 2,245 |
| Kingston and Surbiton | 2,169 |
| Hitchin and Harpenden | 2,108 |
| Esher and Walton | 2,097 |
| Epsom and Ewell | 2,085 |
| Wimbledon | 2,024 |
| St Albans | 1,999 |
| Richmond Park | 1,981 |
| Hornsey and Wood Green | 1,977 |
| Region | Signatures |
|---|---|
| South East | 111,231 |
| London | 68,550 |
| East of England | 61,917 |
| South West | 51,316 |
| North West | 40,758 |
| West Midlands | 35,829 |
| East Midlands | 33,316 |
| Yorkshire and The Humber | 29,582 |
| Wales | 19,391 |
| Scotland | 18,157 |
| North East | 14,955 |
| Northern Ireland | 5,968 |
Debate in Parliament
MPs debated the petition in Westminster Hall on 11 January 2021. Read the debate in Hansard. House of Commons Library debate pack.
Source and receipt
- https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/554316.jsonUK Parliament Petitions API · read 2026-10-15 · SHA-256
1d453df4a062a884… - The petition on petition.parliament.uk
The petition's words are its creator's and the response is the Government's; this site quotes both and gives no view on either. Signature counts can still change while a petition is open. To report an error, send a correction request.