Holiday camps cancelled- what are key workers supposed to do?

[Dishwashersaurous]

My children’s holiday camp provider has just emailed to say that despite thinking that they were going to run, they have been told by department for education that they cannot run.
I booked these days in September.

I understand that if dfe say that they cannot run then they cannot.

But my aibu is what am I , and millions of other parents, supposed to ?

We’ve been just about coping but I was clinging on to the summer camps to enable us both to work normally.

Grandparents are not legally allowed in the house.
No where is open.
I can’t take anymore leave/ unpaid leave etc, nor can my husband as it’s been used up in the crisis so far.

Trying to make plans for this today has left me in tears. (Single parent, self-employed working from home, ex is v unhelpful/ unavailable for childcare even though furloughed, little one back at school for now thank goodness, no family nearby and I usually depend on summer camps). Absolutely no clue how to make this work

Oh no, I thought I was safe when I managed to book 2 weeks in a holiday camp...seriously hoping they will go ahead - the first week I booked is 6th of July seeing as my yr5 dd has no chance of going to school before Sept. What a nightmare..

The camp I use every school holidays have been bombarding me with emails the last few weeks emphasising the 4 camps they run are opening but with much fewer number of children than usual. I'm working from home and I've booked him in for 3 days each week for the last 3 weeks of holidays so that he starts mingling with kids again before hopefully getting back to school in some form in September.

Hopefully the guidance will change otherwise these clubs will have to cancel any booked places 😟

@Paddingtonthebear

Posted too soon!

But it sounds like at the moment, clubs can only open if they are based at the school and only offering spaces to the children who have been attending that school in social bubbles.

That’s one of the big confusions. I’ve been given three different lots of advice on that matter.

I predict a lot of kids being left in the home alone this summer

It's a farce, is what it is. Even if they do change the guidance it'll only be any good for those clubs that have taken speculative bookings. As a previous poster said, a lot have had to call it as they can't hire staff and order food in case they can't run. And there is a very real chance that those clubs that are taking bookings will be letting people down at the last minute. And all that without even any certainly of whether schools will be back in September. They really have no clue what they are doing, do they? I could understand if this was the situation for non key workers- we've were hung out to dry a long time ago - but I just can't get my head round the DfE apparently being unable to grasp what a major issue this is going to cause for keyworker a?

My local club is taking bookings and seems to think they can go ahead even though the DfE confirmed yesterday that no holiday clubs can go ahead unless the guidelines change.

It's so, so, so frustrating because we had, imo, two plans that would have worked absolutely fine.

If we'd been able to hire two classrooms we could have had the 5 bubbles in the school and rotated around the spaces on a weekly basis. Wouldn't have been ideal, but we'd have managed.

There is a community centre on the grounds of the school we operate in. It had three large halls. Our other option was we could have run three school bubbles in the school using the spaces we usually use. The two bubbles from the two other schools could have been in one community centre room each (we could have used a fire exit to allow separate entrances and each has it's own toilets). Each bubble would have two staff. We'd then have had two extra staff not in bubbles who could step in if needed. We can't have two staff in a school 8 miles away and two staff in another school another 3 miles away. It's not safe. People say I'm paranoid about ratios, but the worst accident we've ever had was actually one of the adults. So I'm never prepared to allow only two adults. We don't have enough to have 3 for every bubble.

My staff are all volunteers. They're all either teachers on career breaks, student teachers, student childcare workers, a retired Head Teacher, a football coach so all well trained people (we have a far better Ofsted that the commercial one locally who often publicly comment on their 'professionally paid' staff) who were happy to give up their time (and in some cases organise family childcare for their own kids) to facilitate running and give the kids some fun activities.

But we can't. For no obvious reason.

I predict a lot of kids being left in the home alone this summer

Yeah, me too.

I'm torn- my 5 y/o obviously cannot be alone but his cm has contacted me today to say she is reopening so if we need childcare he can go to her so that's a worry off. But my 11 y/o can't, and I can't leave him alone with my 14y/o who is not a safe person to be around as a younger/ more vulnerable child so if clubs don't run again, one of us will have to not be at work.

I also think there will be a lot of poor quality (if not dangerous) ad-hoc pop up childcare/illegal childminding set ups.

I’ve already heard rumours of two new “childminders” who’ll be open in the summer locally. Neither of them are people someone not desperate would leave their child with (they have childcare experience, but are appalling with kids), but desperate people will do desperate things

I just spoke to the manager of ours (it's run on the site of our ds's nursery, and some of the staff work in both settings), and she said they'll run one of the two camps they normally run, if they can, but they have no idea if they will be able to, so they aren't taking bookings yet. It's a complete shit show - does then government not have any concept of the fact that parents (and providers) need to plan these things more than 5 minutes ahead?

Gracieboat - It seems ideal for a Mumsnet campaign to government. Give children an education by opening up schools properly in September and get holiday childcare open.

Great idea. Like Rashford had to point out to the Government there were children who would go hungry could Mumsnet highlight the childcare crisis working parents are buckling under currently . Help please!!

Oh and remind them of the educational deficit so many of our children face with no access to school for 6months (which jocular Johnson didn’t seem to be taking at all seriously at PMQs yesterday!)

I also think there will be a lot of poor quality (if not dangerous) ad-hoc pop up childcare/illegal childminding set ups.

Agreed. And I think employers will put a lot of pressure on to use whatever’s available, of whatever dubious quality/legality.

I have 16 and 17 year old DC who like many young people all over the country have had all of their summer activities and tours etc cancelled. They are actively looking to find parents of primary school DC who want childcare over the holidays and I imagine that lots of other older teenagers will be the same. I suggest that you ask around to see if anyone wants some work.

@AMillionMugsNoTeabags

I also think there will be a lot of poor quality (if not dangerous) ad-hoc pop up childcare/illegal childminding set ups.

Agreed. And I think employers will put a lot of pressure on to use whatever’s available, of whatever dubious quality/legality.

Massively.

They're also putting pressure on people who provide holiday camps.

I've had four phone calls from people demanding to know why we're "refusing" to open who are not parents of children who'd come; three are employers and one is a supplier we'd use.

To be fair I've also had an email from a lovely local business-couple asking if the reason is financial due to needing extra space or supplies to see if they could help.

I have stuck to the rules since the beginning of lockdown but am about to break them !
DD returning to work ( cabin crew) so DGS will resume staying with us while she is away . He is 14 and ok to be left during the day but not overnight .
I really feel for those of you who don’t have grandparents available.

@old if your DD is a single mum that is a perfectly legal bubble, in England.

We are in Scotland

[quote Xenia]As someone mentioned above Barracudas (which our children have been on in the past) are not opening this summer www.barracudas.co.uk/why-barracudas/news/why-have-you-cancelled-all-the-summer-camps/[/quote]
What!? They accepted my booking and took payment after this announcement

Damn. DS was really looking forward to doing something with other kids and just having fun.

This government hates women that much is clear. They are also completely incompetent.

I’ve said it before on here and received a rather half hearted reply. Where are Mumsnet? They have a huge voice they should be lobbying the government to this out. Open schools, clubs and stop the erosion of 50 years of progress of women in the workplace.

I've not read the full thread, but along with asking Mumsnet to campaign about this, do get in touch with your individual MP as well. Especially if they're Tory. The more pressure the gov are under, the greater the chance they'll change the policy on this. I saw on twitter that it seems as if the people in charge are mostly men who've never had to deal with the logistics of childcare in their lives. Tell them that jobs will be lost and they'll maybe pull their finger out x

Written to my MP again this morning