Should I...?

[MossandRoy]

I work in a secondary school, two of my kids attend the same school. Our infection rate is very low but creeping up. I'm selfishly wondering if I should keep us all off school for the rest of the week, to reduce the risk of infection before xmas. My eldest is coming to see us on Boxing day under the Xmas dates family rule (or whatever it's called) and I'm worried about infecting her. I've been really mellow about the whole covid thing but this week I've got a bit itchy about it with the announcement of another case over the weekend.

How can you keep yourself off school if you work there?

Depends what you do there I think. If you're the head teacher's PA and you can work just as well from home vs you teach English or Maths and someone would have to cover all your classes sort of thing...

Could your eldest DC maybe come another day, towards the end of school holidays and you could isolate on your own time before then?

How are you going to keep yourself off if it's your job? If you can work from home then fair enough, but if you have classes you need to teach then it would be very unfair on the children and your school if you just have an unofficial week off. Would you expect to be paid for it?

I'm not a teacher. I'm only supposed to be in on Wednesday and Friday morning. I don't think I'd be missed.

And that makes it ok to skive off?

Go to work.

Again do you expect to still be paid? Ask for unpaid leave if you want but don’t try to skip work and leave them short.