We hope all our ESL family; supply team, office team, school staff, leadership and pupils are well.

We do not know how long this period of uncertainty and whole school closures will last, we hope that you all stay healthy.  We are conscious that schools, school staff and some of our supply team are supporting the children of key workers who ensure that society stays healthy, safe, secure and fed; on behalf of all at ESL, THANK YOU.

Our priority has been to assist and support members of the ESL family at this difficult, unprecedented time. We are most grateful to those institutions who have offered job security to members of our team fulfilling regular long term assignments. Whilst we know that they have individually expressed their gratitude, this is an appropriate time to add our voice to theirs – THANK YOU.

Additionally, we would like to thank the office and finance teams within schools for their prompt attention that has been given to invoices.  This has ensured that we were able to offer early and immediate reassurance to members of our team.

We are additionally grateful to the support we have been promised from both central and local government. We have been promised a VAT holiday, a financial grant aimed at supporting small business and most significant of all the opportunity to enrol those members of our team, who as a consequence of CV-19 have lost work into the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.   We worked hard to establish eligibility for those supply team we required clarity on; we had dialogue with a Parliamentary Aide, wrote to our local MP and lobbied our trade body, the REC, seeking clarity from the Treasury. We were acutely aware that this is public money and were determined to get it right. 

As things stand:

8% of our team remain on assignment.

52% of our team are eligible and have accepted our invitation to be furloughed.

17% of our team are eligible but we await acceptance to be furloughed.

6% of our team are eligible but declined our invitation to be furloughed.

17% of our team are not eligible.

Therefore, this month 60% of our team are in receipt of either full pay or 80% of their average earnings.  Please be reassured that we are financially looking after our ESL Family.

Thank you for your ongoing support; every little helps. We are very much focused on working hard to ensure that both as an organisation and individuals, we will all be physically, mentally, emotionally and financially fit enough to rise, like a phoenix, from the ashes of this virus.

With government advice we have ceased operating from our offices.  We have and will maintain a form of presence, with Jonathan and Lucy working from home.  Please call 0121 414 1166 with any queries or preferably direct any queries to our email address; support@esl.uk.net.  All our calls are transferred to a single mobile number so our ability to communicate is restricted and you may not get the speed of response usually linked with our service.   

We look forward to re-establishing and developing our relationship with our schools and our supply team when schools re-open, in the meantime if we can be of any assistance please do make contact.

Stay safe,

From all at ESL

The Trusted Connection between Schools and Teachers since 1984