West Dunbartonshire was one of 11 local authorities placed in Level 4 restrictions by the Scottish Government.

This was relaxed last week as we approach Christmas. But be in no doubt that we risk a spike in the virus again after the Christmas festivities – and I suspect in the New Year we will face similar Tier 4 restrictions.

All of us must recognise the significant sacrifice by our school staff at West Dunbartonshire who continue to be exposed to the coronavirus because of the attitude adopted by the SNP that our schools must remain open as normal and to full capacity no matter what.

The West Dunbartonshire branch of the EIS advised that “teachers are being pushed to an expectation and demand that no one else is pushed to” – and most school staff feel the same.

One brave teacher from Clydebank posted on Twitter: “I can’t think of a time when the teaching profession has been so shamelessly ignored, undervalued and misunderstood.”

On November 25, Labour councillors in West Dunbartonshire forced the council to conduct an urgent review of the safety of our schools for staff and pupils. That report will be debated this week at council.

Labour believes that education is of course best delivered in the classroom but not at the expense of the safety of our staff.

Schools must remain open but we support the call from the EIS that if a local authority is placed in Level 4 restrictions then that local authority must immediately look to contingency plans to adopt an element of remote learning which would crucially allow for greater social distancing and tighter control measures for pupils and staff movement within schools.

We cannot wait on the dithering education secretary, John Swinney, to decide.

Improving safety for all within schools helps support measures to suppress the virus in our community. Scottish Government measures were designed to create some level of opportunity for families to gather at Christmas. Yet we ignore the inconvenient truth that we risk our school staff being deprived on that same opportunity which we all expect to enjoy.

Many will be self isolating thanks to their commitment to ensuring that our schools stay open. Our school staff deserve better than this.

They are entitled to expect that we all recognise what we ask of them when we drop our children off at school, and that we support them when they call for greater protection in the New Year.