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Covid
Please Keyworkers if you can, keep your children at home.
Knackeredmommy · 22/03/2020 09:56
I know the info received is vague, but the advice is that everyone is safer at home and that is the best place to be. If you can keep children home tomorrow please do. There is no teaching going on, it's babysitting. Of course if you need to be at work and have no other option, then send them in, but this isn't about keeping routine or your children being taught.
Please do think carefully about it and also the school staff who are going to be looking after your children and not their own.
Stay safe.
Italiandreams · 22/03/2020 16:30
The point is because SOME people are not playing fair, it will be ruined for all. The OP is trying to help those who need it by making sure the numbers are kept down so the care can run as long as possible. People not sticking to this are risking spreading the virus which will cause schools to close and not be available for childcare for anyone.
Knackeredmommy · 22/03/2020 17:53
I'm a teacher and Im trying to spread the message that children should only be in if absolutely necessary! Now I know it's hard for people to believe but there are parents and carers who will be sending children in even though they're at home! I'm not making that up, that's fact. Why people who obviously need childcare are so annoyed at what I'm saying, I don't understand? Not once have I said key workers don't need childcare! I'm addressing those who will bring children in tomorrow because they can, not because they need to. When teachers start self isolating and children spread it, then they'll be less access for genuine need. Already some schools are not able to meet all key workers need and are prioritising health workers. If this post doesn't apply to you, good. But it does apply to some and it's an important message.
dameofdilemma · 22/03/2020 18:11
It's worth directing some of that anger at employers (and I'm not talking healthcare....bear in mind some financial services are classed as KW) who are strongly encouraging KW to use schools (here's a letter , go on take it to the school , go on...).
Otherwise KW have to propose how individuals will continue to deliver the same productivity, with an increased workload. This effectively means working 24/7 or ignoring the kids entirely.
I don't know anyone who actively wants to send their kids in and only know one KW who has done it.
Spandang · 22/03/2020 18:18
Oh if only you were right. Judging by other threads on here, however, this is not the case and plenty of people are abusing the vague criteria for being a keyworker-such as working for a company selling motor parts hmm
It’s a legal requirement for you to MOT your car. March is the highest month for MOTs. How do you propose people meet their legal obligation and keep their cars, which they may well need, on the road if you can’t access car parts?
Same goes for insurance. It’s key workers for a reason.
ChloeDecker · 22/03/2020 18:35
It’s a legal requirement for you to MOT your car. March is the highest month for MOTs. How do you propose people meet their legal obligation and keep their cars, which they may well need, on the road if you can’t access car parts?
So it’s lucky that the govt has made them exempt for three months for MOTs then.
Same goes for insurance. It’s key workers for a reason.
Which can WFH. This was the issue with the poster I was referring to. They could and would have worked from home before the list came out.
GiantRedPanda · 22/03/2020 19:11
The list should only ever have been
- food production and distribution
- health and social care
- emergency services / military
Those are the three areas where we (as a country) cannot cope with a reduced workforce and are, in fact needing an increased workforce.
Anyone else should have to provide evidence that their work is essential to the proper running of the country and cannot be done from home or covered by anyone else in order to be offered a place.
Spandang · 22/03/2020 21:29
Same goes for insurance. It’s key workers for a reason.
Which can WFH. This was the issue with the poster I was referring to. They could and would have worked from home before the list came out.
Shows how little you know. Two large insurance companies in my area, are forcing staff into the office. My husband being one of them.
ChloeDecker · 22/03/2020 21:45
Oh for goodness sake Spandang. Read the contexts of my posts!
The point being that if the keyworker list wasn’t so ridiculously long, then employees who ‘could’ work from home, like your husband, could and disgusting companies like your husband’s couldn’t manipulate the situation for their own financial needs.
The keyworker list is not full of ‘true’ emergency frontline staff and therefore the childcare being offered is being abused and put more staff and children at risk.
It’s not hard to understand.
NellMangel · 22/03/2020 21:48
My work falls very, very loosely into the key worker category. It's a real stretch to link it to combatting coronavirus. Yet one idiot manager has decided to send her kid to school, so now we are all being pressured to do likewise. I wont. Been home working with DC here for past week, it works. I could do without anxiety over the pressure from work, added to the stress about everyone's health and livelihoods.
ChloeDecker · 22/03/2020 21:50
Frankly, as a single parent key worker with a child with a ECHP I am tired of the shade been thrown at parents sending their children to school tomorrow.
Of course I’ve ‘considered all the options’ didn’t take long as there aren’t any!
Then the OP’s message clearly isn’t aimed at you.
ScrumptiousBears · 22/03/2020 21:51
My DDs go to a pre school and a school. Pre school says if your off for a day during the week don't bring them in. School says if they have a key-worker space they are expected in every day unless sick. One of us has a rest day tomorrow and one DD will have to go in.
I can work from home sometimes but if we have an emergency we have to go Into the office for an unknown amount of time. I've sat here trying the balance whether I send them because if I have to attend the office id have to take them with me. Actually that's a lie because work wouldn't allow them in. I suppose I've answered my own question really.
I suppose my point is that not everything is clear cut. DP and I work shifts, some days we'd be sleeping a night shift off, some at home working and some at work.
GlummyMcGlummerson · 22/03/2020 23:01
@NellMangel I have similar in my work - not key workers but martyrs going in to post out correspondence to customers that "cannot possibly" be sent over email (despite the fact we have all their email addresses). She'll be the only one in in a small team of us (and indeed the building bar one site team member) and I feel it makes the rest of us look bad 
District26 · 23/03/2020 08:56
A lot of us have been deemed keyworkers by our companies not by ourselves. I am breaking my back trying to get my OH to work evenings and weekends so I don't have to send my child. My company is similar to this person that you mention @ChloeDecker. Who do you think supplies parts for the emergency services, police cars, ambulances, NHS front line staff cars that they need to get to work? For RAC and AA breakdown patrols? We may not work in hospitals but we sort out the cars and services for the people that do. If there were no car parts and a doctors car broke down how will they get to work? Countless similar scenarios I can think of. It's not the employees deeming themselves keyworkers for the majority.
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