Peter Cheese, chief executive of the CIPD, the professional body for HR and people development comments:

"The Government’s decision to close schools will have a massive impact on working parents. Those that are able to work from home should continue to do so as far as they can. However, this is an exceptional circumstance. Employers must accept that there will be disruption and that working parents will struggle to be a productive as normal.

"Employers need to make allowances for this and take a flexible approach, especially for people with younger children who will inevitably need more care. With many schools looking at remote teaching, parents will have to juggle their work with helping their children to access school activities.

"There may be limited space and limited equipment to manage both parents and children working from home each day. There will be disruption. Employees should speak to their line managers and HR teams to understand how they can best balance family and work commitments, especially as this stands to be for a prolonged period of time."

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