looking difficult as we stagger through the last couple of days of term with growing numbers of teachers with suspected or confirmed cases of covid. the big worry come january, whatever the will is, and the will is there from head teachers, that they may not be able to keep all pupils in school if they cannot get cover for teachers who are off sick. in some areas there have been bearish acute shortages of supply teachers. partly because some are reluctant to work going from school to school in the current climate, and others have gone off to work for the national tutoring programme, the government s catcher programme. today they promised they will get more but we don t know if retired teachers will answer the call. retired teachers will answer the call. two more premier league matches have been called off because of outbreaks of covid, bringing the total to five since last sunday. manchester united s game with brighton on saturday has been postponed, their second match to be called off
still to come: as another storm packing dangerously strong winds sweeps across the american midwest we ll ask an expert in extreme weather systems why such events are happening with such regularity. england s education secretary has written to school and college leaders to say the government will try to boost the numbers of supply teachers by encouraging recently retired staff to consider a return to work. here s our education editor branwen jeffreys. at the moment, it s already looking difficult because we staggered through the last couple of days of terms with glowing numbers of teachers with confirmed cases of covid i9 and so the big worry is comejanuary, covid i9 and so the big worry is come january, whatever covid i9 and so the big worry is comejanuary, whatever the will is from the head teachers that they may not be able to keep all pupils in school if they cannot get cover for
teachers who are off sick and in some areas, there have been very acute shortages of supply teachers. why? because some are reluctant to work going from school to school in the current climate and others are going to work for the national tutoring programme which is the governments catch programme. today, i promise they will try to get more but we don t know if teachers who answer the call. the trial of british socialite ghislaine maxwell is continuing in new york today is the first time we are hearing from her defence lawyers. she is accused of grooming and procuring young girls to be abused by now dead convicted sex offenderjeffrey epstein. she has denied the charges. i m joined now by our correspondent nada tawfik who is following the case for us. what took place is likely to take place today?
probably won t get until next week. lots of supply teachers already being used? igate lots of supply teachers already being used? lots of supply teachers already bein: used? ~ ~ ., ., ., , ., being used? we know that lots of su -l being used? we know that lots of supply agencies being used? we know that lots of supply agencies don t being used? we know that lots of supply agencies don t have i being used? we know that lots of supply agencies don t have their. supply agencies don t have their normal complement of supply teachers. some people don t want to go from school to school working in different classrooms and evidence today shows that if you work in education you are more likely to get infected because of the high number of cases amongst children was also, some have switched to the national tutoring programme in england, so there is a real problem, not everywhere, but in some areas in covering the teachers when they go off sick or when they are isolating for their statutory
they were doing in their response to the pandemic. and he explained that he was looking for ways to increase capacity as teacher shortages due to coronavirus are emerging as the biggest problem in the plans for schools to reopen injanuary. 0ur education editor branwenjeffreys has the latest. a lot of parents will be very anxious to avoid a repeat of this year where school is opened then closed. no one wants to see that happen. but if you don t have enough staff to put a teacher in front of the class, then it s down to the discretion of the head teacher whether or not to send, for example, part of the year group or a year group home to study remotely and to have the school partially closed. so, what they are going to try and do is to persuade retired teachers to work with supply agencies. we know that many supply agencies don t have their normal full complement of supply teachers. some people don t want to go from school to school working in different classrooms,