On December 30th 2020 the government updated its guidance to schools in response to the latest Covid-19 figures. This includes the temporary closure of some schools in England.
Our agency workers and clients will no doubt have many questions, and we are doing our best to assess the situation as quickly as possible.
For Candidates
If you are based in a secondary school, a college, or a primary school within an area that falls within the contingency framework, then your school or college is likely to be affected. You can get a full list of these areas here.
There are exceptions and some pupils will be attending schools that are “closed”, such as the children of key workers or children with special needs. Therefore we are reaching out to schools and colleges to understand their requirements and will then be reaching out to you with definitive answers as quickly as possible.
What happens if the school is closed?
We will be identifying with each school the stance they are taking with regards to your assignment. The approach the government has taken is similar to that taken in March 2020 where we saw a blanket school closure across the country. At that time, the government issued guidance to schools that temporary workers should continue to be paid at 80% of their expected salary. The majority of schools followed this guidance, and we expect the same to apply in this instance. We anticipate the closure of schools to be for a far shorter period than during the previous lock down, and so it is likely schools will want to maintain your assignment for when the school re-opens.
Naturally, we will contact you as soon as we have any information to clarify the approach the school wants us to take.
What happens if the school is open?
As with the previous lock down, many schools still remained open for the children of Key Workers. The guidance issued yesterday maintains this guidance. In the event the school is open then your assignment will continue as normal and you will be able to fulfil the assignment as expected.
We will clarify this position with you as soon as we are able to reach the relevant schools.
Please do bear with us during this time whilst we reach the relevant decision makers so we can provide you with the clarity we all need. We will be in touch with you shortly.
For Clients
We are busy reaching out to you via the telephone and email, and would be grateful if you could respond urgently. You can also contact us, or reach out to your consultant.
The timing of the announcement is frustrating, but we will be doing what we can over the remainder of this week and weekend to ensure that everything is aligned for what we all hope is a short period.
