Today (Tues 23 Nov), at 12.45, the Jersey branch president of school leaders’ union NAHT, Sam Cooper, NAHT general secretary, Paul Whiteman, and NAHT president Tim Bowen, are meeting the Chief Minister and Minister for Children and Education in Jersey to discuss the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on schools and school leaders’ workload.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Mr Cooper said: “School leaders in Jersey have been exemplary in their responses to the pandemic. It has been very hard dealing with the impact on schools and education, but with the additional and continuing responsibilities of performing track and trace, we need more support.

“Many school leaders are spending their weekends undertaking the important tasks of tracking and tracing direct contacts, but the situation in schools remains unprecedented and the pressure relentless. School leaders cannot claim time back in lieu and are not paid for the extra evening and weekend responsibilities; the workload is neither sustainable nor fair. Today we are calling on the Government of Jersey for more support.”

Mr Whiteman said: “School leaders have stepped up massively during the pandemic and have put their responsibility to their schools first. But the situation in Jersey is not sustainable and is taking a huge toll on school leaders’ wellbeing. This cannot continue.

“School leaders have spent every weekend and holiday on call, expected to receive notifications of positive cases and then identify and notify all close contacts of the need to self-isolate. It was just assumed that school leaders would take on this additional duty without additional support or funding.

“To begin with schools accepted that they were the people best placed to track and inform students when there was a Covid case in their school, because they were the ones who had all the contact information. But it has been well over a year now and absolutely no effort has been made to release school leaders from this burden, or to give them additional staff or resources to do it.

“The extra burden this has put on school leaders cannot be underestimated. One tangible thing the States of Jersey government could do right now to help is to remove the burden of running test and trace in schools and give leaders some free time back.”