No Wraparound Care from September

[Mum2Girls19]

School has advised that they are not offering wrap around care from September as bubbles cannot be mixed.
They are thinking that part time places are also the way forward as they cannot social distance properly in a smaller place.
Further information hasnt been announced yet
Im a bit lost of how Im going to work without wrap around care, yes im working from home but who knows how long that will be for

Anyone else??

The primary my son attends is offering afterschool club but no breakfast club. I will speak to my manager on Monday and ask if I can start work later and have a pay cut, If not then I will have to give my job up.

With the number of people on this thread alone that are teachers needing wrap around care, how is this going to work on a wider scale? I can’t afford to not work but if there is no other option other than to give up my teaching job and sell the house just to get my son to school then that leaves my class with no teacher in september. I imagine that will mean many many classes having no teacher in September!

But it’s important to add it’s not just teachers - how many people can work from 9:30-2:30 to do staggered school drop offs?! Hospitals, shops, schools - I’ve never seen a job advertised just for these hoursn

@Helpmyhair2019

With the number of people on this thread alone that are teachers needing wrap around care, how is this going to work on a wider scale? I can’t afford to not work but if there is no other option other than to give up my teaching job and sell the house just to get my son to school then that leaves my class with no teacher in september. I imagine that will mean many many classes having no teacher in September!

A HT locally has said if this is going to be an ongoing issue, or if there's no help given, then going forward schools will need to be allowed to give places priority to staff children

Which is a farcical situation to be in, but I can absolutely see his point

I'm lucky to be paid by the sounds of it! ( for now)
When the club first opened in 2010 they had about 10 children and now it's about 60 or 70 ! ( or was)
So many families going to be screwed over potentially : family can't always look after them either and if a lot of those working are key workers too , then that's even worse.

I know what you mean @The80sweregreat

I keep thinking about our families as well. Lots of them can only work because of the low cost childcare we do. The won’t be able to afford the one expensive option that is planning to open (£250 a week for very little!). I can see a lot of them having to give up work.

Not to mention the kids who won’t be getting breakfast

@The80sweregreat

Someone wound me up by saying ' we didn't have any wrap around care ' no, in the 70s and 80s you didn't need two incomes in order to eat and pay the bills. This was all brought in to try and help working families go to work and have affordable safe childcare, but if this might stop this year the knock on effects could be huge for working parents and their careers. Not everyone has family around that can have the children. Ones that do are much better off generally , I've always found in the past. ( if they can now and the family members are not shielding of course and can have them)

Where I live almost all families have both parents who work as its the only way they can afford to live in the area or they are single parents who are on benefits (you can imagine how that's not exactly easing social cohesion and is building up resentment)

There is a fair number who rely on grandparent care and take up of after school club is high.

The school had the highest number of key worker children in the local authority and with a week to go most of the staff are on their knees with it all, particularly the head.

I personally don't see what choices there are but to either remain closed at huge cost to women or to abandon bubbles simply reopen and for wrap around care to reopen and hope you don't get closed down because there are such high levels of parent employment. Yesterday made it was made clear by school that DS's bubble wouldn't be a single class bubble but a whole year bubble of 60 kids anyway!

And the government advising youth groups that they can restart face to face groups makes the whole situation even more non sensical. DH's scout group has beavers, cubs and scouts from no less than 7 schools.

If DH runs Scouts that's another 15 kids. If DS goes to Beavers that's another 15 kids.

Plus all the contacts from all the different schools the kids go to.

So we are up to 120 kids without blinking. And not even counting other families social interactions.

Loads of parents have jobs as teachers in the area so they will be have similar or even higher numbers of contacts. It's insane.

So I really do not understand why we are even talking about the illusion of bubbles as doing anything meaningful at all.

This isn't the schools fault. It's just a reality that I fear is inescapable at this point. The alternative is destitution and bankruptcy for many.

A HT locally has said if this is going to be an ongoing issue, or if there's no help given, then going forward schools will need to be allowed to give places priority to staff children

What happens in the present?

Also add in separate county issues. Many teachers here work in another county but children go to school here or vice versa.

But it’s important to add it’s not just teachers - how many people can work from 9:30-2:30 to do staggered school drop offs?! Hospitals, shops, schools - I’ve never seen a job advertised just for these hours

I know that my employer would be happy to agree a temporary reduction in hours while Covid provisions are in place, but then they're a very family-friendly employer (have won awards for it). They would also be happy for the worker to WFH for part of the day to accommodate school pick ups/drop offs.

I appreciate that a lot of people work in customer-facing or other roles where this is simply not possible, but where it is possible, I really think employers need to be more flexible. For example, if part of a role can't be done from home, do that part of the job in the mornings, use a late lunch break to do the pick-up and do the other part of the job from home once the kids have been picked up.

I really think employers need to be more flexible

But what is the incentive for them?

Who will help ensure they are?

Most businesses are having to fight very hard to stay afloat and will be looking to reduce head count soon. It’s the worst time possible to be asking for more flexibility from them.

Hundreds of children go to school on the Tube - no social distancing there and different people around you every journey. Bubbles won’t work.

If clubs are restricted on numbers then fees will go up. The people who run clubs have to cover their costs.

My fear is for the future opportunities for carers/parents in terms of both finding jobs and getting promotions. The glass ceiling, I fear, has moved lower.

It's a nightmare all round and not to mention the increase in 'school refusers' too in September as the children all drift back to their own ' normality'. If their outside clubs ( scouts brownies etc) are also affected then that also makes it worse. I really feel sorry for the children and parents trying to juggle work and being a parent.

Employers have no incentive to offer more flexible working. The government has not provided them with any reason to do so.

Essentially, trying to go back to the old normal where school is childcare is going to create untenable situations for many parents.

The government could:

• increase investment in childcare provision and create tax breaks and incentives for setting up wrap around clubs.

• give schools the money to find suitable locations to run wrap around. Most schools are working in old buildings because the Tory government cancelled the school becoming programme in 2009.

They could also provide incentives to employers who offers flexible working and WFH options.

Because there will be more rolling lockdowns to stop NHS services from falling over completely.

How many weeks of education are students going to lose over the next year when areas go back into lockdown or they are self isolating at home?

What we should be demanding is a standard of online schooling that all students can access to create continuity. Where is the investment for this.

HK has just closed all schools again. As has Melbourne. It is going to keep happening.

HK has just closed all schools again. As has Melbourne. It is going to keep happening.

Flexibility will be essential. HK has some very good online learning approaches My current school has some HK links and we learnt a lot from them very quickly. However what is missing by some in the U.K. is the value placed on learning - some of our students lacked the ‘hunger’ for education. On the other hand as we have so many resources now online we are far more more prepared for any future lockdown / blended learning.

Whatever happens is going to be crap for young families. Young mums will have a tough time, at least in the short term, in the jobs market.

I’m trying to sort out a taxi for my son but the school are suggesting they have to be dropped off in a specific time slot and if they miss that then they can’t go in. Also they need to be dropped off by a parent?!!!

@StaffAssociationRepresentative

I agree. We’ve spent all this time getting students used to online learning. We should be using the time in Sept to move some of their learning over to online so that they are ready when more disruption comes.

It would be completely criminal to send students away AGAIN without support or skills to be self starting with their learning at home.

I don’t relish the idea of more weeks in and out of school with whole chunks of learning missing.

how many people can work from 9:30-2:30 to do staggered school drop offs?!

this just isn't feasible in my reality at ALL.

i'm always gobsmacked on here the number of people who manage to find family friendly employers or have a job that can be done in a way that they could work like that, but it's not the reality for me or people i know.

just looking at my immediate family and 2 best friends with kids, how is a police officer going to work 9.30am-2.30pm only?! or my teacher friend? what about call centre staff rotas which expect 8am-6pm shift working, and that's for a fairly big org who have a lot of students/etc doing the later (to 10pm) shifts?

i don't understand why we're nailing another hammer into the coffin with this situation, our economy is already on its kness, and work needs to be made MORE accessible, not less.

i don't like the territory we're heading into with a child's right to education being dictated by the job their parents do.

a child who's the child of a non-essential worker needs education just as much as (say) a hospital GP.

it's very dangerous when we start to say, long term, that certain children have reduced rights to education, it's not a good situation LONG term. fine in the immediate weeks of lockdown to ensure health services and supermarkets still function..but entire generations of children are being held hostage here,

Totally agree with EVERYTHING Becca said.

@BeccaB1981

I totally agree. What really frustrates me is that there are answers to these issue but government has chosen not to address them.

What they chose to do instead is leave education unsupported, with contingency and heads completely in the dark.

It would be completely criminal to send students away AGAIN without support or skills to be self starting with their learning at home.

That’s fine for older kids, but how can very small children be ‘self starting’? It just doesn’t work without considerable input from parents, which many working parents aren’t able to give.

‘Blended’ learning is a nonsense for the under eights. It’s failing them.

EVERY OTHER workplace in the country has to prove that they are ‘Covid secure’ before having their workforce return except schools

I so agree with this. My employer is maintaining 2m social distancing because they think that 1m isn't safe, and the measures that are in place are brilliant. We have to book space in the office if/when we need to go in and the number of people permitted at any one time is restricted to the max that can be accommodated at 2m.

I have no qualms whatsoever about going back to the office but would be most reluctant to set foot in a school, especially as children show such mild symptoms that an infected child could well go unnoticed, and children really struggle with social distancing. When you add in the factor of one infected child potentially infecting another 14, and taking the virus home to siblings, who could then go on to infect another 14 in their bubble, the potential for exponential increase is considerable.

I realise this view will be very unpopular, however!

’Blended’ learning is a nonsense for the under eights. It’s failing them

If there’s a further lockdown we might not have much choice.

@LaurieMarlow, quite, there should be support and incentives for employers who are being socially responsible.

I work in the not-for-profit sector, where social responsibility is a core value. It's a shame it's not more widespread imo.