Sir Keir Starmer calling for nursery closure!

[Boogie5678]

Sorry I’m not sure how to link this but it’s on BBC news.

My amazing Childminder made the decision to close her setting as a direct result of the first lockdown. Before March they were really thriving with lots of clients, 2 FT CMs and an apprentice. They just about made it through the spring lockdown with temp supermarket jobs and some parents continuing to pay fees. At the end of the day there were not enough protections for her business and since she still has school age kids the uncertainty was just too much so she closed at Christmas and pursuing other employment. Such a loss for us and other kids at the setting. The reality is that there is so much that goes on into running even a small setting (OFSTED, insurance, supplies and equipment and the need to manage capacity while you build up a client list) it's really not about opening / closing when allowed.

How about they just nurseries lateral flow tests for their staff? They’ll all be closed or on a strict rota basis within a few days, just like my twins specialist school who hadn’t had a case all year and then LF tests arrived and asymptomatic positives all over the place.

@lamby12

Maybe I'm being naive to ask how many children go to nursery that could be at home? Surely almost all children that go to nursery are there whilst the parent(s) are working? I agree if there's a SAHP the child should be at home now. But where the parent is wfh they are working, and, in my opinion, can't work whilst watching the child. So closing nursery is stopping those parents working (mostly mums, let's be honest)

No, lots use them when there is a parent not working. When mine were that age, more than half used it as childcare so they could do hobbies etc.

Yeah if they close them then nurseries need more financial help! I manage a private one - and last time we tried our best to open for key workers but it was impossible - it cost us way more to open everyday then what money was coming in! We only had 6 children

It was a nightmare

We ended up having to close and not have the key worker children at all unfortunately as we couldn’t make it work

Loads of the parents just got nannies instead and never came back when we reopened - so we are still struggling to get back on our feet now!

We still have rent and bills to pay but will have no fees coming in - the government funding money we get for the 15 & 30 hour children is fuck all - so goes no where towards paying the rent etc

We close this time we don’t ever reopen and that’s 30 staff out of work .

@notwavingbutdrowning5 do you think schools and nurseries should close until all working adults are vaccinated. Just curious as unless all education staff are vaccinated it's not going to 'safe'. I'm fully supportive of vaccinating this sector (I work in a school and am familiar with how scary it has been in recent months) but it's ludicrous to keep these settings closed indefinitely until this has been achieved.

I hope not, if our toddler is at home it’s impossible for our reception child to complete their home learning and is complete the work we can around that learning.

Though saying that we’re both key workers, so hopefully that provision would stay in place.

To be frank I think if the nursery were to close I would be following pp's advice and strapping my daughter into a buggy with the TV on. Male MPs shouting for nurseries to close is just infuriating. It's not the same as having a 6 year old at home (as difficult as that is).

If you look at the statistics, I'm not sure closing nurseries would make a huge impact on covid rates, from the gov.uk stats for 2019 there were under 800,000 private nursery places (plus around 300,000 in voluntary childcare and about 300,000 in school linked nurseries, but I understand a reasonable proportion of these are closed due to the school closing). That's only around 1% of the population, and bearing in mind somewhere in the region of a quarter of these places could still be needed for key workers, coupled with the impact closure could have on the financial viability of nurseries to continue after a closure, to me it doesn't seem that beneficial to close them. Doing so would be for political reasons rather than because it would be likely to have a significant impact on reducing transmission.

I do however really feel for nursery staff - but the government aren't closing businesses and schools to protect staff, merely to reduce transmission in the community to a level that the NHS can cope with.

We are doing what we can to protect our nursery staff - taking our walks at quiet times and getting shopping delivered so our DC can't be a risk to the staff. However we are personally taking on risk by our DC being at nursery and potentially bringing covid home, but this is unavoidable as we both need to work. I am absolutely dreading the idea nurseries could be closed. I genuinely don't think we would cope.

The closure of schools and nurseries affects mainly women and as such the impact is largely ignored - we are just supposed to suck it up, even where that means losing jobs, pay, access to training or career progression (or of course, having to start the working day at 9pm and work through to the small hours to juggle both work and homeschool/childcare, before getting up again at 7 with the kid(s)).

I started a petition on the Parliament website calling on MPs to debate the impact on women and children. It doesnt matter if you are for or against the closures, what matters is the impact on WOMEN must not be ignored. I want the government to pay parents an allowance if they need to take time off work to look after their children (the alternative is thousands are forced to take 20% pay cuts through furlough). If nursery closures go ahead, MPs must also look at how that will disproportionately affect women again, as it is mainly women who work in the childcare sector.

MN rules dont allow us to post direct links in threads to petitions, but if you are interested in signing and sharing, you can find the link in the first thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/petitions_noticeboard/4128560-School-closures-Review-options-to-monitor-and-mitigate-inequalities-of-impact?msgid=103461476#103461476

Thank you

Yes I have an idea on how it can be fixed

• The keyworker status needs to be tightened up to only include those on the front line
• private companies should be made to access the furlough scheme for parents to be able to look after their child or introduce a mandatory 19 day paid leave for parents
• nurseries and school staff should be provided weekly tests, adequate PPE and priority access to the vaccine alongside the NHS

It won't do much / anything to reduce covid but it will force many women into unemployment and poverty and lead to children being neglected. So I am totally against it.

@Femin1st the TUC are already working in that space and they need to get to 50,000 responses on this survey to put pressure on Government today. I know I’ve posted this before but I urge anyone affected by school closures and being treated unfairly by their company because of this to fill out the survey.

www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/2021WorkingParents

@SoRuff63

In answer to the post wanting to see evidence of the virus affecting nurseries - there is data “Reported coronavirus (COVID-19) cases by registered early years and childcare settings” which shows from 0 cases in June the number of reported cases in mid Dec was over 500 per week. More recent data not yet available but we all know the direction we’re going. Nurseries will need to remain open for key workers and vulnerable families but by taking all those children who could stay at home, they face a higher chance of staff becoming ill - or worse - and then having to close for those who need their sessions the most. We all know it’s not easy if children cannot attend but none of this is easy and there are bigger issues at stake here.

That doesn't actually tell you anything about transmission, it tells you that 536 settings (by the way there are an estimated 76000 early years providers, 27000 of which are nurseries - 1.3 million children have early years care in a setting registered with Ofsted) reported at least one case. I agree that that must be a huge underestimate - apart from anything else reported cases have actually decreased since November even as cases have sharply risen - which makes it essentially useless. It also says nothing about whether these cases are spreading in nurseries. I think that it would be silly and naive to say it never happens, but I haven't seen anything that answers whether it's a significant source of community transmission.

Why aren't we just offering vaccine to nursery and school staff as a priority? That way:

• staff stay safe
• people keep their jobs
• children continue to receive education and development

Win-win.

Why isn't Kier suggesting that instead??

He's the voice of reason.
Wish he was PM, schools and childcare are a bloody nuisance where covid is concerned.

Because it is children who are spreading the virus to the community via their families

Of course he is. The majority of politicians can't look at the medium or long-term consequences of actions like these because they'll be hammered for wanting to kill people. It's got very little to do with numbers, and whether nurseries being open is genuinely creating a hotbed of Covid; it's about playing to the crowd. Only very few outliers are willing to start talking, as they should have done over summer, about a cost/benefit analysis in relation to each plan.

Nurseries and schools should not allowed to be closed without strict authority placed on work places and employers.

I don’t care you have twins at 15 months old Sandra- get into work so I can see your staying at your desk for 9 hours without moving!!

@PlumsAreNotTheOnlyFruit

It won't do much / anything to reduce covid but it will force many women into unemployment and poverty and lead to children being neglected. So I am totally against it.

That will be up to them and their partner, no reason they should leave, make the men do their share and cut hours, and provide childcare , so their partner/wife can work

I think they should definitely be closed, it is unfair on everyone else who is trying to protect themselves.

Why isn't Kier suggesting that instead??

Because the biggest issue is overwhelming the health service and neither school nor nursery staff are in category of those most likely to need hospital care, which is overwhelming concentrated in the over 65s.

Make the man leave work?? Incase you wasn’t aware there is a HUGE pay gap- so the MAJORITY of men earn more than the MAJORITY of women.

Mortgages and bills still need to be paid- so families will go with the higher earner resuming work. Forcing lots of women into unemployment!

That will be up to them and their partner, no reason they should leave, make the men do their share and cut hours, and provide childcare , so their partner/wife can work confused

And for single parents? Or if the dh is disabled making the dm a carer, or if the dh is violent and abusive? Or if the dh is a keyworker? Or if the dh is a lazy fuck - is that the woman’s job to sort out too? Or should she just let her children fester in filth and fall behind to prove a point?

I also think they should vaccinate people in work as matter of priority over the elderly but I realise this is an unpopular idea. The elderly don't go out much anyway.

it is unfair on everyone else who is trying to protect themselves.

But the children themselves, who we risk putting in actual physical danger and/or ending up in poverty as a result? They should just suck it up?