Teachers and other school staff who are clinically extremely vulnerable or pregnant should be able to work from home until more is known about the Omicron variant of Covid, according to joint advice to school staff from five major trade unions.

The NEU, NASUWT, Unite, GMB and Unison also call for vulnerable staff to be offered the option of working in a non-front-facing role in schools with filtering face piece (FFP) masks provided.

The unions have also said that Department for Education advice to combine classes in the event of staff shortages will result in increased transmission of Covid and should not be adopted.

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And the unions’ advice to members says household contacts of Covid should not to come into school until they have a negative PCR test result.  

The unions, representing teachers and schools staff, have produced updated joint advice for their members this month as schools return amid concerns over the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid.

Omicron: Work-from-home advice for vulnerable school staff

The guidance document says the advice is for use in schools for at least the start of the spring term of 2022 but will be kept under regular review.

It says: “We face yet another critical moment in the pandemic in January 2022, with the dominance of the Omicron variant….Our priority, as always, is to protect education, and this means keeping staff and students as safe as possible from the impact of the virus.

“The government has no plan B for education. By following our guidance, schools and other settings can seek to minimise the risk of disruption.”

It also highlights how the latest Office for National Statistics figures show how educators are more likely to catch Covid than other professions.

On clinically extremely vulnerable staff, the guidance says: “Although it is not a government requirement, the joint unions urge all employers to permit staff who are clinically extremely vulnerable and pregnant women to work from home.”

Shielding advice for people classed as clinically extremely vulnerable ended in September last year.

The union’s advice also makes a series of other recommendations for school staff to mitigate the risk of Covid spreading in schools .

Concerns over staff being expected to cover other classes

The advice says teachers should not routinely be expected to cover for absent colleagues, nor should they be expected to “teach pupils who they have not been assigned to teach”.

The union says this includes pupils who are not registered for timetabled lessons with them, collapsed classes or multi-class assemblies.

It adds that where teachers are being expected to cover lessons routinely, this should be raised with their union.

The advice comes after an email from the DfE to headteachers over the weekend suggested that schools facing Covid staff absences could consider combining classes and using staff flexibly in order to keep in-person learning in place.

Social distancing

The unions say measures to minimise mixing - for example, keeping groups as consistent as possible - should be reintroduced.

It says that DfE guidance to consider combining classes to address staff shortages will increase virus transmission, leading to further disruption, and therefore should not be adopted.

It also calls for one-way systems, where no longer in place, to be reintroduced to cut crowding in corridors.

Testing and isolation

Currently contacts of Covid cases can attend school but are asked to take lateral flow tests daily for seven days.

The union’s advice suggests that in addition to this, anyone who has a household contact with Covid should stay at home until they have tested negative on a PCR test to “to protect other staff, pupils and families”.

Stagger lunch breaks and move assemblies online

The unions also recommend a series of measures to reduce contact and mixing.

It says large gatherings, such as whole-school or whole-year group/key stage assemblies, should be avoided or moved online.

Face-to-face staff meetings and parents’ evenings should also not take place. The unions call for these to be held online and to have appropriate social distancing maintained where there is no alternative to them being held in person.

They say there should be staggered timings for lunch breaks, other breaks and start and finish times.