If they close schools, what about nurseries?

[MoirasRoses]

Just that really. I literally cannot work if they close nurseries. I’ve got a 3 year old & 8 month old who has just started crawling. I can’t take my eyes off the little one for a minute. And the 3 year old never shuts up demanding my attention. I was on mat leave during lockdown 1 so didn’t have these worries. I’m now panicking. How does Furlough work? Can I go onto that for childcare reasons? I don’t want too, I’ve been back a month. I worry about job security in a pandemic & being the weak link etc. It’s horrible. All these people demanding the schools close .. how?! How are you working with young kids?!

It’s stressing me out. Do you think it may revert to June where nursery & the youngest primary kids can go in but not the rest? Or am I just going to have to accept help from my vulnerable parents or Furlough?

(And yes my OH can help of course but he works full time & I’m a job that literally cannot be done in the evening or weekends, similarly to mine. We are client facing).

Well i dont think getting help from your ‘Venerable parents’ is a good idea

You would just have to go furlough or hire a nanny!!!!

But i dont think they will close!

I don’t think the government will close schools. They could move older years at secondary schools on mix of online and onsite but not primaries. There is no support for this in Parliament and they are supposed to vote for serious measures.
Some schools might close because of lack of staff, this might happen with nurseries as well in case of local outbreak however it will be temporary closures

Furlough is meant to support businesses to keep people in jobs that they otherwise wouldn't be able to employ because of the effects of covid, not because of lack of childcare. I believe it could be used to help fund the salaries of those shielding too.
If your employer is utilising the furlough scheme they may be able to furlough you though, depending on your role. But if you can work from home they will expect you to do so, regardless of your childcare issues (that's not their problem to solve). If you cannot work from home, or will struggle to do so, your options are getting alternative childcare, taking holidays, taking unpaid leave or quitting.
This is how it was during the first lockdown when presumably you were on maternity leave. It's a total nightmare for anyone with young children

They won’t close nurseries. For the reasons you’ve outlined in your OP.

Furlough was allowed for lack of childcare in the first lockdown. I have the same issue if they close school, my job is not possible to do from home and quitting or unpaid leave isn't an option, I'm a single parent so my income is a necessity. It's shit.

Hell will freeze over before schools close again.

They may put secondaries into part time rotas if lockdown doesn't bring cases down enough in certain areas, for a short time. There have been clear guidelines written (published last week) as to who is a key worker and that pupils with EHCPs will have support.

The 14 day quarantine for bubbles is supposed to be a mini localised lockdown for the school; the issue comes when too many bubbles are closed and staff are ill, in which case a school might fully close for two weeks.

If cases are that high that schools keep closing, a part time rota timetable might be preferable anyway in order to reduce the risk to staff and pupils and actually keep education running.

It's very unlikely that they will close the schools nationally. It's certain areas where education and health care is becoming unsustainable.

Nurseries are privately run so I'm not sure where they fit into this. Very unlikely to be affected given the very low case rate.

Firstly I really don't think schools Will close , well not for younger children anyway. But secondly furlough isn't a choice by the employee its a choice of the employer they do not have to furlough you for child care or any other reasons

I'm the same, OP. I have a 3 year old who is quite demanding of attention at the minute, bless him, and a very mobile 9 month old who has an eye for mischief. I'm due back at work in a few weeks. Our nursery seems to just follow what the schools do, so if schools shut, I'm sure my nursery would. Partner a keyworker with vulnerable children, so wouldn't be able to help much.

It's one thing muddling through with an older child who can mostly entertain themselves, but you simply can't do that with younger children. I mean, I can't even wee alone, let alone work

I feel the stress too, but I don't see it happening. Not before other steps taken: secondary pupils wearing masks in lessons/secondary part time rotas etc. Try not to worry.

No nurseries will not be closed

It was absolutely shit in the first lockdown working full-time with an 18 month old, but we just had to muddle through, trying to both do enough work to not get sacked and to be just about adequate enough at parenting that DS wasn't permanently damaged. The thought of going back to it makes me want to cry. Presumably we'd also go back to MN threads full of working mothers with toddlers saying they genuinely think they might have a mental breakdown - fun times! BUT I don't think nurseries will close this time - they're private businesses and there's very little evidence of spread within them, so the opposition would be fierce.

Thing is, absolutely no one is angling for nurseries to close. Not parents, not owners, not government, not health officials. It won’t happen.

People say 'schools won't close' as though they know. They are likely some of the same people who said 'we won't have another lockdown'...

I'm not saying they will close - No one knows!

Schools are closed in other places, schools will have to close here if it gets bad enough. Let's hope it doesn't! FWIW OP, I highly doubt nurseries will close. If they do, millions of parents will be in the same situation as you so a solution will have to be found.

If they do, millions of parents will be in the same situation as you so a solution will have to be found.

I think this confidence is a bit misplaced - the 'solution' last time was that parents of toddlers who couldn't get themselves furloughed either went half-mad with stress (best case scenario) or lost their jobs (worst case) - the statistics show really clearly the disproportional impact of job losses on women with caring responsibilities. No one much in government acknowledged the problem, yet alone did anything to 'find a solution'.

I don't honestly think nurseries will close. Try not to worry too much x

@Hardbackwriter

Fair enough. I probably didn't consider that point carefully enough. My own kids are older so home learning was a strain but not impossible.

What I should have said was: a solution SHOULD be found but with this useless government I accept that's unlikely

Also, if you are all at home and being very careful perhaps a childcare bubble with your parents is possible, OP, if they were comfortable with that.

There’s nothing to indicate nurseries should close. The numbers don’t show this and the negative impact is big. Try not to worry.

I'm in the same boat, same age kids. I will either avail of a key worker nursery space, as I work in a school but even if working from home, they're young enough to need full-time care. Or I'll have to travel to Ireland to get babysitting from my parents and work from there.
The other option is unpaid parental leave.
As others have said I don't think it will come to that. Although I'm more at risk working in a school, I think it's very very wrong to close them.

I do think it would be better this time around if it did happen (and also that it won't!) - the childcare bubbles are maybe some minor acknowledgement that it's an issue, and also I just think most nurseries would (rightly or wrongly) take a different attitude - ours told us last time that we couldn't have a place because only one of us is a keyworker (which went beyond what was required, but was common - and widely supported, MN was frothing about anyone but families where they both worked for the NHS using a school or nursery place), but I think they thought they'd get a lot more government support than they did if they only took a handful of children - if it happened again I think they'd very gratefully take our full fees and offer the place, and any place they possibly could without actually breaking the law.

@MarshaBradyo

Nobody knows - far more cases are linked to schools, nurseries and universities than pubs and shops which in their normal strange wisdom shut

[quote movingonup20]@MarshaBradyo

Nobody knows - far more cases are linked to schools, nurseries and universities than pubs and shops which in their normal strange wisdom shut[/quote]
Do you have figured for nurseries in particular? I don’t think they are high. Which is one of the luckier things about all this. Especially when you see some nurseries in operation (looked around recently). The one we chose had been open since June and not had any issues.

Op why do you say if schools close? Is this just general musing or have you seen it talked about in media etc recently?

During the last lockdown, my eldest was 3 and youngest almost 2. I am NHS front line staff so had to go to work and DH would not have been eligible for furlough due to timing of switching jobs. There was clearly not a hope in hell for him to manage WFH with the children about and we can't pay our mortgage without his income so our only option was to move in with the grandparents.

Lots of others who weren't fortunate to have the help we did really struggled both financially and mentally. For this reason, closing nurseries and primary schools will be the absolute last thing they do and I can't see it happening imminently.

[quote movingonup20]@MarshaBradyo

Nobody knows - far more cases are linked to schools, nurseries and universities than pubs and shops which in their normal strange wisdom shut[/quote]
Nurseries have actually had very very low numbers. Considering the close contact they have with the children (far far closer than the majority of schools with nappy changing, wiping noses, helping wash hands and taking young ones to the toilet) it is great that numbers have been kept so low.