some have watched from countries like denmark and italy. # skip little pony, skip, skip, skip...# dancing in your living room though can bring its own challenges! 0h! we just want to share a little bit of fun, share a little bit of enjoyment and hopefully break up their day and change what could be a really negative, stressful time in their isolation into a little bit of fun. social distancing, it seems, doesn't have to mean children miss out on fun. jo black, bbc news. now it's time for a look at the weather, with louise lear. well, if you are thinking of spending a little time in your garden or going out for a quick walk through the weekend i can offer you something like this, a dryer, settled story for many others across the country. we have seen this nuisance where the front that's been

with us all week. that's going to drift away and high pressure will build as it moves off into the near continent. however, it comes with a price. it will keep things quite quiet but it will start to drag easterly wind and that's quite a cool source at this time of year, so that's going to take the edge off the feel of things. but it does mean more sunshine. just take a look at what's been happening in solihull this morning. a rather drab morning, quite a lot of cloud generally across central and southern england and wales and there of nuisance rain still, but it's by contrast into scotland, northern ireland, northern england, we've seen some decent spells of sunshine, a few scattered showers, but you will keep the same trend into the rest of the afternoon. nuisance rein lingering through the west midlands and south wales and where it does so it's really going to make it feel quite cool for the time of year, temperatures are struggling around 6 degrees. as we go through the evening and overnight the weather front slips its way south. it keeps a blanket of cloud across england and wales preventing temperatures from falling too far, but further

north, with high pressure still there and clear skies the temperature is really falling away quite sharply. we could see temperatures as —5 or —6, so a hard frost fair —— a hard frost first thing but dry and settled in scotla nd thing but dry and settled in scotland and northern ireland. the weather front is producing some cloud, may be a bit of drizzle and showery rain across channel coasts and temperatures again 9—iod the high but as we move into the weekend that weather front eases away or stop the high pressure is steadily moving eastwards. some isobars tightly packed down to the south of that high and that's driving in the easterly wind. that means there is a good deal of dry weather in the forecast. we haven't seen that for some significant weekends, have we? but it's certainly not a gale, but it's a biting easterly on the exposed coasts you will notice a difference with the feel of the weather, 7—ii difference with the feel of the weather, 7—11 is the overall high. but a good deal of sunshine is expected and it will continue into the second half of the weekend as

well. a subtle change in direction with the hype means not feeling quite as chilly on sunday. largely dry, a little more cloud into the far north—west. top temperatures peaking between 7—iid. a dry, settled story heading to us for the weekend. back to you. a reminder of our top story. questions over the government's education plans, particularly over cancelled exams, as schools and colleges across the uk prepare to shut their doors tomorrow. that is all from the bbc news that one so it's goodbye from me and on bbc one we nowjoin the bbc‘s news teams where you are. goodbye. time for some sport here on bbc news. i'm hugh ferris. the fa has announced that english football has been postponed until at least the 30th april

because of the coronavirus pandemic. that's a further four—week delay on the 2019—20 season which the fa say has been extended indefinitely. our sports news reporter laura scott is at premier league headquarters in london. we have just had a statement issued by the premier league, the fa, efl and women's game are saying as you said a football will not start again until april 30 at the earliest. they had pushed back, they thought football might be able to be resumed on aprilfour but football might be able to be resumed on april four but that was not realistic. the collective bodies have agreed they are fully committed to trying to finish the season if at all possible. crucial to that being possible is that the fa have agreed to relax a rule that said the season shouldn't finish any later than june one. they send it will be extended indefinitely which will vastly improve the chances of those fixtures being able to be fulfilled.

we have unity across english football today. they want to finish the season but it cannot start until april 30 at the very earliest and they have welcomed the decision also by uefa to have postponed euro 2020 by uefa to have postponed euro 2020 by one year. these are obviously unprecedented times and this decision is an unprecedented one for them to move the end of the season backwards. yes, unity across english football today. pressure continues to build to postponejuly‘s olympic games in tokyo with one of britain's most decorated olympians describing attempts to keep the event on as "folly". yesterday, ioc member hayley wickenheiser said assertions the games will go ahead regardless of the current spread of the coronavirus pandemic were detrimental and this morning sir matthew pinsent said the games shouldn't take place as planned.

but the president of world athletics, lord coe, has told the bbc this morning that he thinks it's too early to postpone the event. i don't think you have to make that decision at this moment. i have a responsibility for our showcase events, the diamond league, we've postponed three of them, not the whole of the season for the simple reason that we don't have to make that decision at the moment, and b that i will do what i can to try to keep the season intact, because the athletes, this is their career. i need to be careful that i'm not removing the earning potential from athletes any more i need to. well, double gb olympic silver medallist james guy says he'll be "100% ready" whenever the games take place — although he's still working on the assumption they'll happen in late july. if they are going to give us a date, work back from that, do not comply and just deal with it. people who are not going to do that, what am i going to do? my head is gone. just

get on with it. in the back of my head, when they give us a date, i will be ready. two months, three, one year, i will be ready to go. the best athletes in the world across all sports, they will be exactly the same. people who can deal with the best will get the best results. that's all the sport for now. you can find more on all those stories on the bbc sport website. that's bbc.co.uk/sport the app is there too. let's round up the latest developments today, as the coronavirus pandemic continues. downing street has dismissed reports that a travel ban could be imposed in and around london, saying there was "zero prospect" of such a move. in the commons, mps have demanded immediate government intervention to prevent large numbers of people

being laid off by firms struggling with the effects of the virus. meanwhile, pupils in england and wales will find out tomorrow how their gcse and a level results will be awarded after this year's exams were cancelled. all schools across the uk will shut on friday, but some will remain with a skeleton staff, to accomodate vulnerable children and children of key workers. the education secretary gavin williamson gave an update on those key workers that schools will make provisions for. the cabinet office will be releasing the full list of the key workers later on today. that will sort of detail all those occupations, but if i can give you a few examples, all those people who are working within the nhs, and we often talk about the doctors and nurses, but there are so many more people who make sure that a hospital is able to run and to properly function. so all those people who are involved in that endeavour will be included. there will also be the need for those who work within schools,

those who are providing the support in order for doctors, nurses and those nhs staff in order to be able to get to the hospitals. but then more widely, there is the fact that we still need to have our critical national infrastructure that continues to work and function right around the country. we also need to be ensuring that we have delivery drivers, delivering the food and the resources that we need to our shops right across the united kingdom. gavin williamson. earlier my colleague annita mcveigh spoke to alina grant — who's one of the many students across the country who have had exams cancelled. but, ultimately, there is a certain level of uncertainty and none of us really know what is going to be taking place. i think, for a lot of us, we really do want to be taking these exams because, you know, that has been our end goal for the last two years

and it's really been what we're working towards. so, yeah, it kind of... it's a very unfortunate circumstance. obviously, we're in the middle of a major health crisis, but as a 16—year—old, that end goal is those gcses and we were just in sight of the finish line, really. so has your school advised you to keep working as if you were going to be doing those exams? yeah, i think so. keep working. obviously, the end goal is the exams but, at the end of the day, education is that important. but, yeah, keep working towards exams. keep learning. keep going, really, because we still aren't sure what's going to happen and how we're going to be graded if we will have an opportunity to sit any of those papers. so what to you would be the fairest way in the absence of sitting exams to be assessed? would it be by your teachers, who know you best, grading you? i mean, obviously our teachers know us best and in that sense predicted grades seem relatively fair. but i think we've come so far over these two years and the mock exams for many of us were a real wake up

call on where we're at and what we need to do in order to get the grades that we deserve and that we're capable of achieving. so i think almost these last two months are really critical for our gcses and making that progress. so obviously in that respect, that's the only option and is what's going to happen. but i don't know, i don't really think that is fair. and if possible, i would really think for us to sit those papers would be ideal. because fundamentally, and we're hearing this a lot, aren't we, lots of students are saying, look, i've got my mock grades, but i know i can do another big push? if i'd been sitting those papers, i could have done better. i think if we were to sit those papers now, a lot of us would be doing a lot better than we were for our mocks. and also we hadn't learned all of the syllabus for our mock papers. and it's kind of like, that's the motivation. that's what we're working towards and we're just in sight of that finish line. so i don't think our mock grades are necessarily going to be a true reflection of what we're capable of achieving. have you heard anything? has the school heard anything from the exam boards yet, as far as you're aware? not as far as i'm aware. i think they're trying to interpret the words of the government and do

what is best and fair for us, whether they will be internal exams is one possibility. but i think right now everyone is in a major period of uncertainty and no one really knows a clear way forward. are you worried, alina, at this point that you might not be able to do the a—levels that you want to do? i'm not too worried about that in that respect. i think moving forward, i think that'll be very much possible. but i also think gcses are a really important practice for all of us. you know, taking public examinations, working in a set amount of time with a certain amount of pressure is kind of an important skill that we're missing out on. and we've been working really hard in order to be able to do that. i can see lots of sticky notes over your shoulder. i don't know if those are revision notes, are they? yeah, that's my spanish tenses. yeah. we've really been putting in that effort recently. so, it's a shame not to be able to take those papers, really. alina, we've just been talking here about work, work, work. but, you know, i've got to ask about the social side of this. you and all your schoolmates, you know, thousands and thousands of pupils right around the uk, right around the world, of course, are being plucked out of their normal life, plucked out of their schools, that social life that they have,

seeing friends each day. how is that feeling? well, to be honest, obviously, we work hard for our gcses, but then we're meant to have of the best summers, you know, after gcses and everything's been cancelled. going away, festivals, all of it. it's not a great state to be in, to be honest. summer's going to completely change. without our exams, it's kind of, there's nothing really to look forward to, is there? so how are you, finally and just briefly, alina, how are you staying positive? i thinkjust keep on going. i don't think it's really sunk in, i'm kind of still acting like i'm going be able to take my gcses, go away in the summer. obviously, that's not the case. i've been in isolation this week. it all just feels pretty surreal, to be honest. i think we're just waiting for a bit of clarity before... you've been in isolation, so you've actually had symptoms? yeah, i've had a bad cough and a slight temperature and stuff, and it's been pretty draining. so, obviously, it is really important that we are all in isolation, that we are protecting those who are most vulnerable.

yeah, it's not been great, to be honest. alina grant. it is, of course, a worrying time for all of us — and uncertainty over schooling is adding to the pressure on children. annita mcveigh spoke to sam cartwright—hatton, professor of clinical child psychology at the university of sussex. she has created a guide for parents on how to manage their children's anxiety during this period. the advice we are giving does depend on age, what we have been talking about is younger children. what we have been saying is due talk to your children about theirs. they will have heard about it, they will have talked about it at school, even nursery age children will have had stuff in the playground about the bug that is going round. quite often the rumours that go around playgrounds are a little bit out of control. they can be quite frightening. do talk to your children about this, open the conversation, if they have not opened it already. i suspect lots of them are. i suspect most parents

are talking about this. but if your child has not brought it up, open the conversation. have you heard about this bug going around? what do you think about it? get them talking. try to find out what they are thinking and any facts that need correcting or gaps filling in so they are not quite so frightened by it. how much detail should parents go into with their children? how upfront should they be with them? we say be as honest as you can. really only answer the question that they are asking. if your child is not asking about really serious illness, you do not need to go into detail about that. if they are asking about it, you do need to be honest. you do not want to be in a situation where you say it will be absolutely fine, i promise. we are going to be fine, no—one will get hurt and then say a grandparent does get seriously ill or worse, then you've got a situation where your child will not believe your assurances in future. do not promise things that you cannot be sure of.

it is ok to give reasonable reassurance. it is fine to say to children... children do not seem to be getting very ill with this at all say the chances are that you will be absolutely fine. you might have a sore throat, a cough, feel poorly, you will be fine. if you as a parent are youngish, relatively fit and healthy, you can probably give fairly similar reassurances about yourself. make sure you are not promising things you cannot guarantee. and not too much detail — just answer the question they ask and you do not need to go any further. we are only human, we have up days and down days, we are filled with degrees of anxiety, how important is the behaviour of the adults talking to the children and influencing how well they will go on to cope? that is a good question. it is super important. if you are feeling wobbly about this, you've got to keep it out of your voice, out of your face. our kids look to us to give us a cue as to how the situation is.

as to how safe the situation is. if you are talking about this and they sense you are frightened and worried, they will pick it up even if you are not saying you are worried and frightened. if you cannot keep your voice calm and quiet, and sometimes we cannot, just don't talk about it with your child. get someone else to do it, delegate it. give it to your partner or your friend or your sister who can be calm and sensible about this. do try to answer questions, as i said, if they are coming up. i would also like to talk to you about coping strategies, if you like, for children being off school, as they are going to be from tomorrow, if they are not off already. perhaps coping strategies around a family being in lockdown for 14 days. what is your advice? i am quite worried about this. children really... all humans need social contact. we have got to try and maintain

that, get on the phone, get on the internet, get on skype and so on. we have got to try and keep contact going but remember to do that for your children as well. if you have got more than one child, they can play with each other, hopefully. if you have not, if you have an only child like me, i think we are going to have to make sure that they are getting opportunities for play, that is critically important for children. some psychologists call it the work of play. it is what children need to do. your child does need play opportunity and if needs be, get down on the floor and play with them. get the hungry hippos out. sorry! my daughter is coming up with ideas to play over the internet. they can come up with solutions to this. make sure you give them the opportunity. a short while ago, the uk's chief medical adviser and chief scientific adviser held a press briefing.

here's sir patrick vallance explaining why some groups have been told to self—isolate for a period of 12 weeks. in terms of what went his on for, the priority at the moment is to make absolutely sure we get this as contained in the sense of reducing the peak as we can. once we are there, that is when you look at relaxing measures. and where testing not only for active viral infection but the ability to test by antibody responses who has had it. that will then allow us to be clearer about what the time course is. we need to, chris has said it clearly, we are dealing with a brand—new virus, learning as we are going along

and i think to put absolute timelines on things is not possible. we can see that in other countries where people are beginning to experiment with releasing some of the measures a bit. although the initial upswing of the epidemic will happen, you can then modify it. we are trying to delay and push the peak down. on the death rate question, critical, when we started out, when you look at sage documents, when we started out we had very wide uncertainty around what the death rate was. upper bands were high, lower bands were obviously lower. as time has gone by, we have become more confident about what the death rate is in people. realising it varies significantly depending on age group. what you need to do to calculate

a death rate reliably is have a group of people representative where you can follow them from the very beginning to the very end and where they represent the whole spectrum of disease. one of the reasons different countries have different apparent death rates, to do with how they calculate their data. in the uk at the moment, this is going to shift substantially as we move to more testing, but at the moment the majority of our testing system is based on intensive care cases, and people who have reached hospital. that is in other words based on the more severe end of the spectrum. unsurprisingly, we would expect a higher proportion of those people, because we have essentially selected the very most severe to have the higher death rate in that group. that is not representative of all the other people who have not reached hospital, mild or moderate and have

never had to leave their homes, have been absolutely fine. the mortality rates calculated around the world, based around the full spectrum of clinical disease followed for the full period so you can be confident from beginning to end. that is how you do it in terms of actually calculating. the reason i did the long answer, there will be a period until we have ramped our testing up in the community where if you justified the number of cases were identify by the number who die, it will look as though the mortality rate in the uk will be quite high. i am predicting this forward, this is not retrospective, i am expecting this to happen. that is why we are collecting the denominators, people with severe or fairly severe disease rather than allcomers. over time, that will shift. as covid—i9 continues to wreak chaos on the world economy, some industries are better suited than others to deal with the disruption. in south africa pharmacies and cleaning companies are capitalising on an urgent need for hand sanitizer and cleaning

services — the bbc‘s vumani mkhize brings us this report. scrubbing the germs away. well, that's one way to combat the deadly coronavirus. and, as cases continue to rise in south africa, companies are taking extraordinary measures to sanitise their communal workspaces. thisjohannesburg office is getting a disinfectant scrub, and you can actually smell the alcohol from the cleaning solution. since the outbreak of the coronavirus began, companies and ordinary south africans have been clamouring for deep cleaning services, and they are determined to keep their homes and offices virus free. whilst most industries around the world are finding it difficult to cope, cleaning companies are seemingly virus—proof. with many struggling to keep up the demand for their services. there is a lot of people calling and wanting us to come, and clean, so it isjust as getting there, to

get to all the people. that's the problem. what we go to our clients, and we help them when we can. pharmacies are also seeing increased traffic volumes inside their stores. and most customers are looking for one product. hand sanitiser. demand is so high that some retailers are selling six months' worth of stock in just a matter of days, creating a nationwide shortage. unfortunately, we've had to say to people take one, and leave one for your fellow neighbour, but unfortunately, they have cleared the shelves. anytime we put out hand they clear the shelf but what we are trying to do that so that all of the south africans can get the hand sanitiser, we put the so that they have to ask for it. stock at the self—medication counter, so that they have to ask for it. while the times may be good for some industries, the overall picture for the economy is bleak. since the virus outbreak began. south africa's currency, the rand, has weakened by over 20% to the us dollar. many industries are finding it difficult to operate in this

tough economic environment. as a measure of relief, the government is planning on using the $10 billion unemployment insurance fund to assist temporary lay—offs and support companies hit by the pandemic. economists, however, are not optimistic about the future. the numbers are already suggesting that we could have a recession for the year, as a whole. now, with this added pressure coming from the globalfront, and the restrictions that have been placed on the south african economy, to sort of stem the spread of the virus, this is definitely going to weaken our economy. cleaning up the social and economic mess left behind by covid—i9 will take years but, for now, south africa, like many countries around the world, is trying to contain a potential public health crisis, whilst still ensuring the economy doesn't grind to a halt. vumani mkhize, bbc news, johannesburg.

for many, the last couple of days have been wet, if not wet then drab. towards the weekend, greater chance of some more sunshine in the forecast. the nuisance weather front eases away, high pressure drifting to the near continent but staying largely dry. comes with a price, an easterly wind makes it feel noticeably cooler if you are going to spend any time out and about. bear that in mind but this has been the story we have seen. in england and wales, grey, light rain in solihull. the satellite—radar shows that quickly. a north—south divide, central and southern england damp and drap, for the north, chilly start, scatter chart. start, scattered showers. scattered showers into the far west of scotland, predominantly dry and sunny. noticeably cooler under the cloud

and rain, only six in cardiff. the front eases away slowly, leaving a legacy of cloud. temperatures likely to fall sharply, frost possible across the north, as low as minus five or six in sheltered, rural glens. still a legacy of cloud,... cloud across central and southern areas, dulland damp through the south—west with temperatures peaking into the afternoon, 8—10. into the afternoon, we see the back of the nuisance weather front that has been with us. the high pressure drifting off to the east, for the start of the week in, a dry theme for many. a great chance of seeing sunshine coming through on saturday. don't forget the nagging easterly wind, particularly on the exposed east coast, your thermometer might read eight

or nine but feeling noticeably cooler for this time of year. not much difference into sunday, subtle change of wind direction perhaps, not feeling quite as cold. eventually a weak weather front spilling into the far north—west, not too concerned, dry, settled and sunny with highs of 7—11. take care.

this is bbc news. i'm simon mccoy. the headlines at 2. difficult exam questions: as schools prepare to shut down pupils, teachers and universities say they need to know what will happen to gcses and a'levels — ministers promise answers tomorrow our aim will be to issue pupils' gcses and a—level examinations in august as we usually do. but it will be under a different process and a different system as to how we've done it always in the past, with traditional examinations. scientists tell the government that the risks and benefits of further drastic actions to contain the coronavirus need to be properly weighed up we're dealing with a brand—new virus, we're dealing with learning as we go along and i think now, to put absolute

timelines on things is