Am after some advice please. I have decided I want to return to work after a 4 year career break while my children were small. I applied for a post in a school office, closing date was a month ago and it stated interviews were scheduled to be the week after the closing date. I had all the relevant skills and experience they asked for in the person spec and job description, so felt I was a strong candidate. A week after the closing date I received an email from the school to advise they had contacted my last employer for a reference and I needed to authorise this with HR so they could release my information, which I was a little surprised about, as have never had this before an interview, but contacted them straight away to authorise. There was no mention of an interview being offered and I have since heard nothing. The start date for the role was advertised as being straight after half term which is now only just over a week away. I'm pretty sure my reference would have come back fine as I never had any issues with my last employer and was there for 14 years before taking voluntary redundancy. I did drop a brief polite email to the school about 5 days ago just to check they had received my reference, just in case they hadn't, but have not had a reply. Should I chase again, I don't want to seem pushy and I'm sure the Covid situation is delaying things, but it took me ages to fill out the application and I have since done a fair bit of prep work reading up on the school and refreshing my memory ready for an interview, so I'll be genuinely gutted if I don't at least get an interview. I'm just conscious it will be half term next week so I'm unlikely to hear anything then.