Bristol and South Gloucestershire NEU branches met last week to discuss the ongoing Covid crisis in our schools.

Schools are engines of Covid spread and young people living in multigenerational households or with family members with underlying health conditions risk bringing a deadly virus into their home. Mindful that educators’ first concern is always for the health and wellbeing of the young people they work with.they have therefore agreed on the following set of demands.

• A move to remote learning for the week beginning Monday 7th December to serve as a firebreak to suppress Covid. Whilst remaining open to vulnerable students, children of key workers and academically vulnerable students who could not access remote learning during the last academic year.
• A wider closure on the 14th December to ensure students and educators alike do not face the risk of needing to spend their well deserved holiday break self-isolating.
• Full pay for supply teachers and any staff member who needs to take time off of work to care for sick or self-isolating children.
• All clinically extremely vulnerable staff and staff in the third trimester of pregnancy to work from home.

Educators, school leaders, students, staff and their families, deserve a holiday break with a semblance of normalcy. Schools need to be closed on Monday 14th December to ensure this.