Ms Ann Piggott:

One seldom sees many jobs advertised at this time of the school year. That there are several jobs currently advertised shows the trouble that there will be for schools.

On the question of teachers who are high risk, we are getting heartbreaking letters and phone calls. It does not apply to many teachers but there are some with very serious conditions, who have had cancer and are missing lungs or who have asthma and multiple medical problems. They are very much in danger should they go into schools.

We are not talking about a lot of people. Numbers in one region in Germany suggest that 400 out of 13,000 would be high risk and very high-risk teachers. A lot of high-risk teachers want to be in the classroom and are fit for work but there are some cases where teachers' lives will be in severe danger if they go into classrooms.