Childcare being removed for key workers

[Mia1415]

My DS has been going to school and his childminder during lockdown.

I was informed yesterday that from 1st June you are only allowed to send children to 1 setting a week (so school or childminder).

Whilst I can understand the logic of not wanting children to mix bubbles I am really annoyed about this as:

• giving key workers 1 weeks notice that they will be loosing childcare isn't really acceptable
• are key workers no longer deemed important?
• It can take up to 14 days to display covid symptoms so allowing 1 week in school, following by a week with a childminder doesn't really prevent anything
• One of the key points of getting children back to schools is so that parents can get back to work. At my school the years that are going back in initially are only doing 2 days a week, so if wraparound care is banned how is that helping people get back to work?
• I can understand this rule a bit more for children that are just returning to school, but not for children that have been going to both throughout lockdown.

(I have emailed my MP and local council about this and I'm awaiting a response).

AIBU?

Yes. Since 1984 we have had all kinds of people helping with our 5 children (we both work full time), from full time daily nanny (when we had a baby) to live in nanny (when our nanny took 4 - 6 weeks off to have her own baby! which she then brought to work), to sixth formers coming to the house at weekends to do a few hours whilst we worked to evening babysitters. I have not used a nursery but that is only because in the 1980s there were hardly any at all other than those for university staff and a few for troubled families. It is different now or it was until CV19.

okie, advertise. last time we put an ad min the paper we got 50 responses although often used an agency instead as people who were clearly unsuitable were weeded out in advance for us by the agency.

The biggest problem for many parents however is cost. They just don't earn enough to cover months and months of no school or no nursery, even school holidays are a problem. My child's school used to have 2 weeks of summer camp you paid for which dealt with 2 weeks of the summer holidays, then we typically went away for 2 weeks on holiday but it still left a lot of time to cover.

Yes why not Okie. Join childcare. Co. UK I'm sure you'll have plenty of interest.

I'd say local councillor copying in MP.

I'm wondering if I should go into the holiday nanny market based on these posts

Joking aside they are seriously encouraging an unofficial network of babysitters of all sorts of descriptions to open up. Or for kids to go into the care of grandparents (remember it's ok to drive a few hundred miles for childcare )

Remember the generation of "latch-key" kids. Don't open the door, don't touch the cooker, and don't answer the phone!

@Juanmorebeer yea sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like it’d be an instant solution, just not to automatically assume it’s not affordable. I’ve been in this situation since day 1 of lockdown, DS school didn’t provide any wraparound care.
The agency I used was really helpful and allowed me to pay the nanny through them until she was registered, which obviously is taking longer due to lockdown. It’s still far more expensive than my usual set up but it allows me to do my job and my DS adores her so it’s worth it for the peace of mind.

There are a lot of Y13s twiddling their thumbs at the moment. If I had an older child (ie junior school age - 7-11) and could afford to, I would employ one of them to look after them after school each day. So a bit like Xenia's au pair idea, but just find a neighbour's son or daughter who needs something to do and likes children.

Its political and it directly hurts women and their ability to provide for their families

Well the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't exactly have a wife who works outside the home, does he?

Blackbear -'latchkey kids' is what I have been thinking about. That is honestly what I think lots of parents will be pushed into if the government doesn't seriously do something and quickly.

Milkysmum I can seriously see it happening. Communication being what it is mobiles / text. Its probably less risky than it was in the '80s.

Oh my I've just blown my brains. I got my latch key when I was 10, would I trust my 9 yo with one

Is it the MP or the local councillor who we should speak to?

I've emailed both but no response as of yet.

I never had a latch key child but I do remember twice, probably the only times, the twins were in the house alone - once because my son was 15 minutes away from home and unless I left exactly at that point I would be late to give a public talk. Anyway I left them in the house and guess what they did? They left the hosue, walked across the road (no traffic, quiet road) to their best friend#s house and his parents took them in. Imagine how I felt! The parents were really nice about it and said any time I needed help just tell them. Then another time they answered the door when home alone and given my bad luck it was a police lady doing some kind of neighbourhood watch thing. Instead of reporting me to social services thank goodness she just said next time don't open the door if you are home alone.... And no, no one can report me to social services today because they are age 21 now... phew. I think I am safe.

Contact your local councillors. That is not on.

Are you sure that is right ??? Our school is opening for nursery ,reception, yr1 and yr6 and our guidelines are if you are a keyworker with a child in any of those years they will go into school to be cared for and if not the other year groups will continue to be cared for in school club for keyworker children.

Sorry haven't RTFT, are you down south op? Got the same info from our childminders, they can't pick the kids up from other settings

Oh my I've just blown my brains. I got my latch key when I was 10, would I trust my 9 yo with one Mine was a latch key kid at 9, now 14, he was fine.

I completely understand why they are doing this. They’re protecting the bubbles.

Rubbish for you though.

We’re running 2 groups - bubbles and keyworker children separately. Is your school abandoning keyworkers?

@hinckley Different local authorities are interpreting the guidance in different ways, as are individual providers. I hope that over the next week that the guidance will be re-read and thought about in terms of how practical it is for parents. What works well for the school or childcare provider may not work well for parents. A balance needs to be found otherwise many parents will not be able to return to work.

@Mia1415 blame the government. Educational settings only received a toolkit for planning a phased return (from 1 June) last Friday,
but had already been working and planning before that, by reading through the approx. 14 relevant guidance documents, many of which contradicted each other, and preparing risk assessments. To protect children and staff returning to a school/setting, and keep them safe, children who have been attending during lockdown need to be separate from those returning. If a child is moving from a lockdown bubble, to a return to school bubble, they have to quarantine for 14 days, but also have to choose one setting to attend, otherwise they could take the virus between groups. It’s not punishing keyworkers, it’s not “made up”. If children returning to school was that safe and simple then it would have happened weeks ago. It is to keep everybody, absolutely everybody safe.

@hinckley It’s not about “what works well for the school”. None of it works well for schools. The majority of children cannot socially distance. It’s about educational settings doing their best to do what the government has told them to do, without consultation, to the best of their ability, with no time, no extra funding, in many cases with fewer staff. Don’t blame the education sector if parents are finding it difficult to return to work, blame those responsible, which is government

@CallmeBadJanet - the guidance only says children should attend one setting if possible.
If schools are no longer providing wraparound care for key worker children, then it isn't possible for children to only attend one setting as they will need to go to after school childcare.

I completely understand why they are doing this. They’re protecting the bubbles.

I agree with this, and think it’s the safest way to protect the individual settings.

@SandieCheeks Yes of course, so educational settings have to promote this, to be able to do what they have been told to by government, which is to re-open to certain years, and make it safe to do so. Safe is the keyword, I cannot say this often enough.

The “return” to school, is going to school as it will be from 1 June 2020. Not how school was on Friday 20 March 2020. The pandemic is not over, things are not back to “normal”.

But schools and childminders can't be forced to accept a child in multiple. That's government guidance but it doesn't trump individual risk assessments.

It's not going to be "safe" for any of us if teachers, nurses and care workers can't go to work because of schools' overzealous interpretation of the guidance.

It's not overzealous to want to keep students and teachers safe just because it makes childcare difficult.