Mr. Paul Rolston:

I am not aware that we are seeing that now but it is identified as a potential difficulty, particularly where something like a school, class or pod closure happens and students have to return home and parents must then take some time off. That featured in the media today but it has been an ongoing concern that where those kinds of things happen, parents may have to step back from the workplace and suffer financially thereafter.

In answering many of the questions that have arisen, the key point that has emerged is that this is a learning period. We are just back at school, we are starting to learn and we need to learn from this period. We all need to work together to identify the various things that are going to happen and that we cannot tell will happen in advance, but we will learn as we go. The important thing is that we work together, learn and put in place the management structures and supports that will be necessary behind all the things we will learn. It is pointless opening the schools if we do not learn and look after the children, teachers and families involved. In an unprecedented reopening time, there are new lessons to learn and we need to learn, manage and support them properly.