Ensuring the health and safety of parents, students and employees is at the forefront of everything a school does. Here, Paul Slater, Vice President – Health, Safety and Environment at GEMS Education, explains what steps schools are taking to protect students and staff
We have all been affected in some way as a result of the current global pandemic. This is a very unique situation and one which most of us would not have envisaged at the start of 2020. We have all had to significantly adapt our lives to support bringing this issue to a manageable position. This is clearly reflected in how we go about our daily lives.
As challenging as this is, from a health and safety perspective, we have to continue to ensure that the health, safety and well-being of our students, parents and employees is at the forefront of everything we do. This includes ensuring we maintain our high levels of hygiene and maintenance across our schools, while also ensuring that we comply with all regulatory COVID-19 working arrangements. To achieve this, we are continuing to conduct daily temperature checks for all our service employees, who are essential to the continued operations of our schools. Additionally, we are ensuring that social distancing practices are observed, through opportunities of lone or reduced working.
Life will eventually return to normal and it’s important that we are in a position to ensure that our schools can return to full and immediate operational capacity. This is why we are ensuring we continue to maintain our operations and ensure the highest levels of health and safety are observed.
The GEMS Well-being Team has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure we provide our employees, parents and students with the appropriate support they may need. We have an amazing network of teachers and employees who have been able to offer some inspirational ideas on how to support.
A special thank you to our dedicated teachers who are working tirelessly around the clock to deliver quality education to all GEMS Education students in these unprecedented and challenging times.