What about nursery staff?

[Wherediditgo]

It may just be me, but they seem to rarely get a mention in all this? Aren’t their jobs just as unsafe as a teacher’s? Potentially more so due to the higher level of care required for pre-schoolers?

I'm early years.Expected in as normal monday.God knows how will we will cope as I predict 50% of the staff will be of ( childcare issues some vulnerable ) Just hope an announcement to shut all education settings is made before monday.

Advice is risk is low to young children but we all know how untrue that is.

Hi @Ilovegreentomatoes - how do you know this? It's my concern too but the general narrative seems to be that under 5s aren't being affected. Is your experience different?

And special school staff... I tried to wear a mask. I understand why the ASD children I work with ripped it off my face because I then looked "wrong" but I'm really not feeling like I'm safe working with a class of 13 children in a tiny room (school well over numbers) all of whom have challenging behaviours. I feel for my EYFS colleagues, the difficulties we face are similar...

Support for nursery workers appears to be far less vocal than it is for teachers.

greentomatoes and I never even thought of the childcare issue from schools not being open!

I wonder if it has anything to do with public vs private sector?
Most nurseries are private sector and they don’t open, they can’t collect fees and could potentially go out of business.
This isn’t the case for schools. Maybe nursery staff have the difficult choice of health vs livelihood?

I guess the difference is most of the staff aren't in a union. The staff tend to be young, low paid and much less likely to have the confidence to stick their head above the parapet and say they aren't happy.

I think a big problem is that all you hear is reassurance that infection and hospital rates in under fives is low, fantastic, we would never wish harm on our children. However, it's the staff who are not given a safe working environment. Staff I know caught it from children with no symptoms, it's very worrying.

Are you a Nursery worker, OP? And if so, what Union are you in?
I know Unison, which many Nursery workers belong to, is also supporting the NEU actions (see attached).

My dd works in a council run nursery.
They haven't had one case in a child as yet.

It really doesn't seem the risk is that great. We are in tier 4 and have been under local restrictions since September, so we are in a badly affected area.

I work as a childminder and am very scared to reopen my doors tomorrow. I am aware that although covid doesn't present symptoms in the majority of under 5's they can transmit it to us adults. I care for 3 under 3 and it's extremely close contact, I closed first lockdown as my son has asthma but I can't afford to close again and will now have mindees here who have hopefully not broke tier 4 restrictions and my 2dc as their return to secondary isn't until 18th January

Staff in my kids' nursery said they are hoping to open as normal next week. I figure they're inside it not me. I will support whatever additional safety procedures they ask for. When they have asked for extra money for cleaning stuff, hired extra staff member etc they said they got a very good response and they feel well supported by parents. If they want to close I will support that too. I trust them not the government with my children after all.

@Eternia @Ilovegreentomatoes the r rate for just before we broke up for children 2 to year 6 was higher than most adults.

I’m not a nursery worker.
Just wondering why they barely get a mention amongst all the references to the teaching profession.

In my opinion all schools and nurseries needs to be closed and only cater for key worker children. The government need to respond and get their act together as it is Sunday now! Obviously staff in areas outside of London dont matter in their eyes !

@Oysterbabe

I guess the difference is most of the staff aren't in a union. The staff tend to be young, low paid and much less likely to have the confidence to stick their head above the parapet and say they aren't happy.

I think you may be right here. Just saw your comment on another thread as well which I wholeheartedly agree with. This board has become a strange place of late.

I'm early years and can't work as my 5 year old can't go to school so it has a knock on effect. There's only 2 of us with small children there so unless any staff have any symptoms it should just be the 2 of us that are off. We have an app at my work that parents use and can write messages on and I've already seen lots of messages from parents to say their child will not be attending nursery for the next 2 weeks.
So I think we will be quite low on numbers too if those parents can easily work from home or are on furlough themselves.

Nursery staff rarely get a mention at any point anyway. But yes possibly more so than teachers, except perhaps reception. There's not a chance of social distancing, there's the care needs, the cuddles. The helping to zip up coats etc etc. You're constantly face to face. Plus there's up to 30 of them in a room. And there's not a hint of ppe and probably pretty sketchy hand washing when you're talking about 20-30 preschoolers being supervised by a handful of staff.

To be fair I wouldn't want to wear ppe, it would be frightening for some of them, would impact on communication, and would be very very different when we're trying to keep things as close to normality as possible despite all the changes to activities etc.

Yes they need the money, many nurseries have had to close anyway since the expansion of government under funded hours. Covid has put paid to many more going by the Facebook groups i'm part of. But also there is, in the nursery I work at anyway, a keen awareness of who we're there for. The children, and the families that need to work.

I'm in the situation where I need the childcare because I work there. I'm a bit wary, but the amount of cleaning and thought that's gone into resource rotation and bubbles etc does set my mind at rest. And also I wouldn't want to leave my colleagues, and especially the children, under staffed.

Please could we add childminders to this. I don’t have a boss, HR, colleague or anything to help guide me through this shit show. At the last closure in March our LA coordinator turned off her phone because too many people were calling her. We have no one and I haven’t a clue what to do. My own children will be off school and I still have little ones coming tomorrow. Should they mix? Shouldn’t they? Should I close? Use ppe? Can I afford to close? I care for teachers children, will they cope if I close? It’s all a nightmare.

I’m a teacher who also has a child at nursery. It’s a private nursery so they do get PPE, their windows open properly and they’ve put in strict cleaning measures which they have the funds and staff for. I think pre schools and state nurseries are much worse off, though I guess it depends on the policies at each private nursery.

I support them in whatever changes they need to make in order to be able to work safely, same as schools. Hell, If they need to wear full hazmat suits to care for the children then fine by me. My two year old is so used to masks, visors, gloves etc that she really wouldn’t care.

I agree with a PP about the lack of union membership in Early Years. When I was on the pre school committee I discussed union membership with the staff and they just didn't see the need or want to join. They believed unions were only for strike action. I gave them all the information about the different education unions and unison but they didn't want to join. This is very different from school teachers who mostly have union membership. Now there is no one strongly advocating for their safety and they have my absolute sympathy as the data above shows they will be at risk too.

winnies the more I think about it, the more it seems that nursery workers have a raw deal but are quietly getting on with it.

The staff at my son’s nursery have been absolutely brilliant the whole time. They had one Covid case in a member of staff, closed and paid for private tests for every member of staff which revealed another 3 cases. They’ve kept us informed the whole time, put the welfare of the children first, didn’t charge us for periods when they’ve been closed etc. I have a great deal of respect for them.

We've been under local restrictions more or less since the first lockdown ended and there hasn't been a single case at my sons nursery. Infact I don't know of any local nurseries that have had cases.

I'm with you, OP. I'd actually feel much safer about sending my DC to nursery if the staff had been vaccinated.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat

Please could we add childminders to this. I don’t have a boss, HR, colleague or anything to help guide me through this shit show. At the last closure in March our LA coordinator turned off her phone because too many people were calling her. We have no one and I haven’t a clue what to do. My own children will be off school and I still have little ones coming tomorrow. Should they mix? Shouldn’t they? Should I close? Use ppe? Can I afford to close? I care for teachers children, will they cope if I close? It’s all a nightmare.

Yes of course - childminders too!