I'm an experienced highly qualified Early Years Educator and at work today at a creche I spent approx 3 hours deep cleaning as per current regs - I think this is neither sustainable nor desirable AIBU

[Germolenequeen]

AS ABOVE

@D4rwin

Deep cleans are a necessary part of a nursery environment and very commonly done when the setting is closed. It is utterly vile if you think that doing something of benefit to learners is beneath you. Nice try.

What a ridiculous thing to say. OP isn't suggesting it's beneath her. What she's rightly suggesting is that it is a much more sensible use of a highly trained person's time to use that training to benefit the children, whilst employing someone else to clean who is a specialist in cleaning.

Cleaning benefits hospital patients. Do you think it should be done by surgeons and consultants? Or would you rather that they get on with treating patients?

I’m a nursery nurse too. No disparagement here. Call the role a practitioner or whatever you fancy. At the end of the day the children need to be in a clean and safe environment. When swine flu was doing the rounds I spent hours cleaning touch points in addition to the usual cleaning schedule whilst being the department supervisor. Did I moan? Or consider myself too important to clean? No because it was essential. I’ve met many who work in childcare with a similar attitude to the op which is a shame because without a clean and safe environment I don’t see how they can expect a child to thrive.

Laughing at all the "I'm a highly educated professional but I've spent the last few months teaching" posts. Do you think teachers just walk into a job with a couple of GCSE's and and a best handwriting certificate?

I’m a professional with a medicine related masters degree and I’ve been working full time AND being a pseudo bloody primary and secondary teacher since March.

We’re all having to do extra stuff this year. Suck it up, Buttercup. 2020 doesn’t care about your CV.

This is also me, and now I'm back in the office in cleaning everything all the time too. Just have to do it.

A lot more cleaning is part of everyone’s lives now. This is the new reality. If you’re so well educated, you should know that.

@2020meh - unfortunately, if the OP is not on an official break and is in the building, she will count towards the ratios, even if what she's doing is cleaning, not interacting with the children.

I have no problem with EY staff doing the cleaning themselves, but I do have a problem if that's not matched with an additional staff member on site to cover this time away from dealing with the children.

Some Pre-schools and nurseries have wriggle room the budget to have extra staff on site for a few months, long term they will have to up their prices - for those that operate with just the government funding without charging 'top ups' will struggle unless they're given more money to employ more staff to cover this.

I think if nurseries had better standards of cleaning before, maybe we wouldn't have suffered 9 months of hell with the whole family being constantly ill when DD first started nursery.

I appreciate some level of exposure is a good thing, but some nurseries needed a kick in the arse to improve their cleaning practices.

Well I too have to disinfect everything at work.
I'm not a nursery nurse.
I go in early to prepare. My hands are like a rhinos due to the amount of hand gel I'm using. My boss stated we have to either wash our hands for 20 seconds between seeing every member of the public or use hand gel. I
It's simply not practical to go to the toilet and wash every time. I don't have the time.
Working practice has changed.

@2020meh - unfortunately, if the OP is not on an official break and is in the building, she will count towards the ratios, even if what she's doing is cleaning, not interacting with the children.

I have no problem with EY staff doing the cleaning themselves, but I do have a problem if that's not matched with an additional staff member on site to cover this time away from dealing with the children.

Yes. And while I appreciate OP drip fed a bit, it's very obvious from her subsequent clarifying posts what's happening here.

Im an office manager and often have to turn my hand to jobs which aren't strictly in my job description. At the moment we are all doing what we have to to keep the business open to keep our jobs

There's a pandemic op, needs must.

For now the priority is a safe, clean environment not arts and crafts.

It's all part of the plandemic. And no, that's not a spelling mistake.

@wanderings

It's all part of the plandemic. And no, that's not a spelling mistake.

Is that the plandemic that "they" have pulled off using 5G? Classic!

I am a highly qualified and experienced Health Care Professional working in Primary Care. Since Covid, I have been doing work that is usually done by Health Care Assistants and Nurses less qualified than me. We clean in between each patient. I do all of this because patients need me to to keep them safe and because patients need me to provide a service. It hasn't once occurred to me to moan about this being unsuitable work for someone of my skill set. Man up and stop bloody moaning

Who is looking after the children while the teachers clean for 4 hours a day?

Many teachers do not have a TA because of funding cuts.

Kids in many classes will have to just be left alone while someone cleans for 4 hours a day.

However, I'm sure leaving 4 or 5 year olds on their own for extended periods of time is fine...and safe and there will be no issues that will come about because of it. So long as we just stop moaning all will be well.

coronafiona
I’m a professional with a medicine related masters degree and I’ve been working full time AND being a pseudo bloody primary and secondary teacher since March.

So you have had to parent your child, what a shame.

'However, I'm sure leaving 4 or 5 year olds on their own for extended periods of time is fine...and safe and there will be no issues that will come about because of it. So long as we just stop moaning all will be well.'

I would hope such an experienced highly qualified early years practitioner educator would be able to risk assess and set small children work or tasks while she sprayed the toys with anti bac and still keep an eye on them. It is a short term measure, better to have kids in a learning environment surely. Honestly people whinge about everything.

I would hope such an experienced highly qualified early years practitioner educator would be able to risk assess and set small children work or tasks while she sprayed the toys with anti bac and still keep an eye on them. It is a short term measure, better to have kids in a learning environment surely. Honestly people whinge about everything.

This is not just about toys, this is about cleaning in the bathroom in another room while 30 children go in and out and you clean for 30 minutes at a time. Yes I can set work but you'll also know that some will get on but a few do not have that self control and will dick around without someone standing over them.

How is that comparable in any way from the OP's setting of having to do it WHILE the children should be interacted with and taught?

Thank you, you understand in a way most on here don't. Like you say the children will suffer and many pushed for children to be back in nursery and school for their education but clearly aren't right fussed over what they are doing while they are there.

@takemetomars

I am a highly qualified and experienced Health Care Professional working in Primary Care. Since Covid, I have been doing work that is usually done by Health Care Assistants and Nurses less qualified than me. We clean in between each patient. I do all of this because patients need me to to keep them safe and because patients need me to provide a service. It hasn't once occurred to me to moan about this being unsuitable work for someone of my skill set. Man up and stop bloody moaning

Presumably having to spend time cleaning means you see fewer patients? Don't you think all your training and experience would be better used in seeing more patients?

'can't belive how many utterly moronic people on this thread popping up saying ''Well, I'm cleaning my desk at work" or "I'm doing a wipe down between patients".

What a lovely way to talk about people including HCPs who are managing to cope in this crisis. It isn't ideal but it's a short term solution to ensure DC, many who are disadvantaged, are in a learning environment. Experienced early year educators need to learn to multi task for a period of time.

If you (general) want to say that while the reduced level of attention available for young children when staff are doing this level of cleaning is a bad thing, it's the best of several crap solutions in the circumstances, you can make that point without adducing a not at all comparable example of work that doesn't involve the care of small children and that can be relied on to stay still and not injure or soil itself while you do the cleaning. In fact you just did it quite nicely there.

Experienced early year educators need to learn to multi task for a period of time.

We multi-task all the time in our job, if you understood the role of a teacher you would know that we don't just chalk and talk.

However multi-tasking when you're in another room is kind of impossible, we can't split ourselves in two and can't take our PPE into the classroom but have to wear it to clean.

Please explain how to do this then I can be the best educator around.

Do I use a megaphone so I can yell instructions from inside the bathroom?

Do I set up an ipad and a whiteboard and teach from within the bathroom in full PPE via zoom while they sit in class? No safeguarding issues of having zoom in a bathroom of course!!

Do I run backwards and forwards in between each child undressing from PPE, bagging it correctly, running outside to the bin store, washing myself down and locking the chemicals away, then say one sentence before running back again, going to get more PPE, dressing in PPE and unlocking chemicals to clean after the next child?

Please give me some direction here as I am clearly a shit educator who is struggling to see how this will work?