Back to School and Work?

PCA Daily News

Schools and businesses are starting to open on a wider scale from tomorrow. It’s a very daunting prospect for most of us.

We can choose not to send our children back – there are very conflicting views about the safety concerns surrounding this.

As parents it is our choice and we can do what we feel is best for our children.

The government expects children to be able to return to early years settings, and for Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 to be back in school in smaller class sizes and some on a part time or rotation basis.

Secondary schools and further education colleges are also preparing to begin some face to face contact with Year 10 and 12 pupils.

We all know our teachers have worked extremely hard during this lockdown, keeping our children focused and engaged with the home learning activities whilst keeping schools open for key worker’s children.

We know it’s not ideal, but health and safety of our communities must come first.

The urgency to open our schools whilst the infection rate is higher now than at the start of lockdown is being challenged by the government’s own health advisors.

And this is true for the work place too.

If your employer has asked you to return to work but you are scared, then you should discuss your fears with your employer and agree working arrangements.

Employers should make all efforts to help people to work from home where they can. But where work cannot be done at home, employers should take clear, practical steps to help protect workers and create safe places to work, such as shift working or staggering processes.

To identify the precautions needed to manage risk, your employer should discuss the workplace risk assessment with you to identify the practical ways of managing those risks.

If you have any concerns our advice team can try and help you. Email them at advice@ourpca.uk or phone us on 01672 487022.

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