This advice applies to all primary schools, special schools, SEND and early years settings in England.
In UNISON’s view, it is unsafe for you to attend the workplace at present if your school is fully opened to all pupils.
Our advice is that you should decide to advise your head teacher or employer that you will not be attending the workplace but will be available to work remotely from home or only being in school supporting provision and the learning of key worker and vulnerable children if necessary.
Here is a letter for to send to your head teacher or employer:
When sending this letter, you will also be asserting your legal right to be protected against any detrimental action by your employer, including to your pay. This right is explained in full in the model letter.
Our advice applies for at least the first two weeks of term, the same period for which secondary schools and some primary schools have already been instructed by the government to move to remote learning.
UNISON is issuing this advice after careful consideration of the advice which was apparently given to the government by the SAGE advisory group and the current position on infection rates.
Safety in schools
We understand that SAGE has advised the Government that schools should move to remote learning in order to help reduce the rate of spread of the COVID-19 virus.
The advice given by SAGE has only been adopted in relation to secondary schools and to primary schools in some Tier 4 areas. Given the overall increase in infection rates, however, we believe it is unsafe for schools to reopen in any area at present.
Infection rates are far higher than at the end of last term. This increase has been promoted by the new variant of the COVID-19 virus which was not properly understood at that time. These developments mean, in our view, that the risk assessments in place in schools at the end of last term cannot now be relied on by employers to demonstrate that workplaces are safe in these changed circumstances. We are calling on all employers in all schools, whatever age group they serve and whatever the local tier of restrictions, to review their risk assessments and safety measures before asking employees to return to the workplace.
Face to face provision
We accept that schools may need to provide face to face provision for vulnerable students and the children of key workers and are also expected to open for some exam groups.
This should happen after risk assessments have been reviewed and appropriate measures taken to ensure safety, including for necessary social distancing and limits on group sizes.
We are advising members that they should agree to make themselves available to attend the workplace to support these students on a rota basis. The model letter you can send to your headteacher/employer makes clear you are making yourself available to work from home or to support with this limited in-school provision.
Petition to make schools safe and protect communities
Along with the teachers’ union, the NEU, we have launched a public petition calling on the government to use this period of remote learning to establish how quickly the new variant of the virus is transmitted, and to establish measures to keep schools more “COVID secure”.
Next steps
Update – England
While Gavin Williamson was misrepresenting UNISON’s position in parliament yesterday we were writing a joint letter with NEU raising some of the issues that are hot topics at the moment and seeking a meeting following their offer of joint working. Feel free to send this letter round – we will get it up on the web at some stage.
We understand that late yesterday the DfE emailed schools further seeking to undermine our position on section 44. I have proposed to NEU that we do a joint rebuttal letter and get that out to Heads hopefully later today.
We are finalising additional advice for special schools today – this is with NEU and GMB.
I have been invited to a meeting with the scientists today at 3pm – which is after our schools committee. We are liaising with a loose coalition of unions and employers to try to make sure that the focus is on urgent issues such as increased numbers in schools and vaccinations ( which employers are also worried about) – rather than them take the whole of the meeting telling us again it is safe for children to go into schools…
Also note that we have been having discussions with colleagues in our IT section and we expect that from the middle of next week we will have the capacity to deliver mass meetings in the same way that NEU does. I will liaise with Pam about her availability to chair the meeting.
We have still not had updated guidance from the DfE about the Government’s announcement on closures /nursery openings.
