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?

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.

Not really the schools, it's local authorities... which then affects schools, nurseries, pre-schools, childminders.

If teachers cannot get childcare then they cannot work. Do we really have enough teachers in our schools who do not have young children themselves?

They’re protecting the bubbles.

Not when all the parents who used to use that wrap around care will use each other and ad hoc care - thereby creating a myriad of bubbles rather than just one additional one.

Not when all the parents who used to use that wrap around care will use each other and ad hoc care - thereby creating a myriad of bubbles rather than just one additional one

Exactly and this is why blended learning is a bullshit idea. 15 kids in a bubble at school 2 days a week but no reliable childcare..... How many people are now in that bubble?

Schools are meant to be providing full time key worker provision still.

Our school is only allowing a parent to collect a child. No friends or other forms of childcare are allowed to collect.

So what is the solution? Schools are trying their best to problem solve following the guidance which is clear about the bubbles. What should they be doing?

Allow mixing of settings where necessary as per the guidelines instead of point blank saying no?

I actually thought this when reading the information from our kids school on Friday. They are no longer offering breakfast and tea club wrap around care after half term to prevent mixing of bubbles. I wondered what happens to all the key workers that don’t just work 9ish til 3ish.

The best solution I can think of is the bubbles are then cared for by an official afterschool program.

But that involves a bit of joined up thinking. Its incredibly stupid to think children are going to have parents who are able to be home for them.

@Italiandreams the answer is for schools not to try to block working parents from using childminders obviously - as is allowed in the guidelines.

Otherwise parents will have to cobble together arrangements where friends or relatives collect children or pick children up to drop off at childminders.

Parents should be encouraged to minimise the number of carers involved but a blanket no other settings is not following the guidance.

So for some parents it could be that they have a child that is cared for by a childminder and the child attends school or pre-school. So a combination of two settings. If that child has a younger sibling who is also cared for by that childminder, which would be common, then that household is using two settings.

Where a family has two children where one is pre-school age and one is school age and they have wrap around care by someone else (childminder, nanny etc) then that household is using three settings but each child is using two settings.

I agree some schools are overstepping the mark but they have spent two weeks working out plans to ensure the bubble idea works as per the government guideline and also to keep staff and children safe. Then the guideline have been updated 42 times , they are trying to keep on top of it.
I don’t have a solution either, I know many schools are incredibly stretched with staffing, partly as school staff are having exactly the problems you are talking about, which is part of the reason they are struggling to offer any extended hours themselves. But please remember , generally schools are doing their best, trying to follow guidelines that are completely contradictory in places . They have been told they are responsible for keeping children and staff safe and all they really have to support them are the guidelines.
Imagine if there is an outbreak of COVID at the child minders and then 4 bubbles at the school close, they will be then be dealing with the fallout there. It’s a rough situation and I completely sympathise, just trying to put forward the other side.

Allow mixing of settings where necessary as per the guidelines instead of point blank saying no?

This.
Certain elements are deliberately misreading the guidance for their own political ends.

They are also misreading their audience.

This is supposed to be a planned and gradual return to normal. We'll be looking at how the first few weeks go, then hopefully extending it further if it's safe to do so.

By September, all the schools should be ready to fully open, it's just this term that people need to be flexible.

Yep all the doctors, nurses, carers, midwifes, etc can all just call in work and say they are working 9-3 from 1st June for the next term ....

Apologies for the crude illustration.

Scenario A, a child in the pre-school group (pink oval) is infected (the dot circled). All those in the pink oval are to self isolate until the test result.
The parents of the children self isolating do not have to self isolate themselves.

Scenario B, a child in the pre-school group (pink oval) is infected (the dot circled) they are also in childminder group (green oval) and in household group (blue oval). Everyone therefore self isolates, except the parents of the other children.

Less people self isolate in Scenario B if the childminder group did not exist.
Though in Scenario A as the child infected did not attend the childminder, then the childminder can continue to care for the 4 children who are not self isolating (6 children total in that bubble of whom 2 are also in the pre-school bubble so they stop attending the childminding bubble).

Wrap around care is available only for key worker children at our school from June 1st as it has been throughout. Children going back to school in other groups just have normal school times available.

This is supposed to be a planned and gradual return to normal. We'll be looking at how the first few weeks go, then hopefully extending it further if it's safe to do so.

Really... what has given that impression? Nothing in the guidance about it only applying for a few weeks. I certainly expect it will change over time but that timescale is really uncertain.

Is the solution for next week that children should attend the childminders but not attend pre-school, or school? Is that going to be appropriate for school aged children in particular who may now be under the impression they will be going back to school shortly?

Nick I’m talking about the gradual easing of lockdown. Let’s face it, there is very little in the so-called guidance for anyone: we’re being told to work out our own solutions. So we’re doing that.

Do you honestly think YR, Y1 and Y6 are the only ones ever to return to school?

It's a phased return but it may take many weeks for schools to install temporary classrooms to accommodate the now smaller class sizes. Or will class sizes of 30+ be allowed again?

Pre-schools that has 26 children may never return to that if the limit of 16 is not expanded. Will that make them financially unviable? Will we see more or less pre-school education?

It's all an unknown.

"It's all an unknown."

Exactly, so that's why we're going carefully at first. It isn't just the Government guidance we're working to, it's our own risk assessments, advice from our professional organisations and Local Authorities. Future guidance is very likely to change things.

It would be madness to have every child back in their original settings for their previously booked hours on 1st June. The settling in alone would be impossible. That doesn't mean we'll be continuing forever with the new arrangements we've had to make.

and this is exactly why it's too soon and mine won't be going in ( and yes I am lucky we have a choice, DH is a key worker but can work from home, and I can work from home and have a very understanding employer)

Refer back to the OP. In their situation child was attending school and was being taken/collected by a childminder. That was working perfectly well.

Yet now the OP is being told by their childminder that they are being told by their LA that they can no longer do this but the guidance issued does not say that children cannot attend multiple settings.

What is the OP and other parents in their position to do? Stop sending their child to school? Is that really the intention of the guidance?

The conversation has gone somewhat off the point but, as I said earlier, we've been told we prioritise key workers.

My first reply, that addressed the Op, was:

Childminders have been seeking clarification on this issue for two weeks. We are still waiting for guidance from the DforE.

The lack of coherent guidance means that schools and childminders are put in an impossible position. We're expected to find solutions ourselves and ensure that groups mix as little as possible. It's our responsibility to keep the children and ourselves safe. If we get it wrong, our insurance is invalid and we are held liable.

It's my understanding that key workers are to be prioritised.

That guidance from the DfE didn't come out until Sunday. We are all still being told to risk assess and make our decisions based on those risk assessments. The situation from 1st June is different from what it has been in lockdown: there are far more children to consider.

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

I understand the logic. My issue is that key workers are no longer the priority and there is no alternative provision being given.

Only 1 weeks notice has been given of the change and the logic doesn't stack up as I could send my DS to school and childminder on alternate weeks and that would be fine in the guidelines. In reality of course that is nonsense as he could be infected at school on the Friday and pass it to the childminder on Monday!

From what I can gather, you're expected to use one setting or the other: that's what I've seen in information from schools that we've picked up from in the past, and it's what some of our after school parents are doing: others are adjusting their hours to accommodate the pickups so we don't need to do them at the moment.

Yes, it is a mess and the guidance doesn't help.