School breaking COVID restrictions

[Rosieposielaw]

I’m a key worker and so my DC have been attending school. I have booked them onto holiday club for the February half term.

I have since found out that the school has opened this holiday club up to any child, not just those who are vulnerable or children of key workers.

I am very worried that my children will be mixing with many more households. I also think the school are breaking COVID restrictions, as other children are required to work from home. The school have told be that it is fine and allowed. Are they correct?

If not, Who can I report this to?

@Pastanred

the gov guidance around childcare is not key worker - its been changed to critical worker - anyone at work now is a critical worker and entitled to a place

That’s not correct. Give me a sec and I’ll link to exactly what are critical workers.

It's childcare not education so it's allowed 🤷‍♀️

No it's not. Childcare for early years (e.g. nursery) can operate as normal. Childcare for school age children is limited to keyworker/ essential worker/ critical workers whatever the terminology is.

Ceeveebee has already linked but for those too lazy to clock I will reproduce it here.

Critical workers
Parents whose work is critical to the coronavirus (COVID-19) and EU transition response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors outlined in the following sections. Children with at least one parent or carer who is a critical worker can go to school or college if required, but parents and carers should keep their children at home if they can.

Health and social care
This includes, but is not limited to, doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.

Education and childcare
This includes:
childcare
support and teaching staff
social workers
specialist education professionals who must remain active during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response to deliver this approach

Key public services
This includes:
those essential to the running of the justice system
religious staff
charities and workers delivering key frontline services
those responsible for the management of the deceased
journalists and broadcasters who are providing public service broadcasting

Local and national government

This only includes those administrative occupations essential to the effective delivery of:
the coronavirus (COVID-19) response, and the delivery of and response to EU transition
essential public services, such as the payment of benefits and the certification or checking of goods for import and export (including animal products, animals, plants and food), including in government agencies and arms length bodies

Food and other necessary goods

This includes those involved in food:
production
processing
distribution
sale and delivery
as well as those essential to the provision of other key goods (for example hygienic and veterinary medicines)

Public safety and national security

This includes:
police and support staff
Ministry of Defence civilians
contractor and armed forces personnel (those critical to the delivery of key defence and national security outputs and essential to the response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and EU transition)
fire and rescue service employees (including support staff)
National Crime Agency staff
those maintaining border security, prison and probation staff and other national security roles, including those overseas

Transport and border

This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response and EU transition, including those working on transport systems through which supply chains pass and those constructing or supporting the operation of critical transport and border infrastructure through which supply chains pass.

Utilities, communication and financial services

This includes:
staff needed for essential financial services provision (including but not limited to workers in banks, building societies and financial market infrastructure)
the oil, gas, electricity and water sectors (including sewerage)
information technology and data infrastructure sector and primary industry supplies to continue during the coronavirus (COVID-19) response
key staff working in the civil nuclear, chemicals, telecommunications (including but not limited to network operations, field engineering, call centre staff, IT and data infrastructure, 999 and 111 critical services)
postal services and delivery
payments providers
waste disposal sectors

Has anyone provided a link so far that shows that holiday clubs are allowed to operate?

@Rosieposielaw I get where you're coming from, but also that there are so many parents of kids on here who have been isolated from other children for such a long time and are struggling, so it's hard to hear someone saying that their kids don't deserve to go to a holiday club.
I'm a key worker so would be entitled to a school space. My DCs are at home, however, as DH is WFH so it would be v hard to justify them going into school.
If there were holiday clubs open next week near me, I'd send them in a heartbeat.

@Pastanred

i get that but that covers almost all currently open sectors so if your boss says you are required then you are critical

Does it? Off the top of my head it doesn’t cover construction, manufacturing (other than food), non-essential retail (eg those working to fulfil click and collect orders in warehouses or shops) And it doesn’t cover any of the many sectors where parents are working from home and juggling homeschooling eg lawyers, marketing, IT, accountants (other than those working in relevant sectors). Hence why schools have only 15% of children in...

Holiday clubs can open to key workers or children deemed vulnerable. Considering a key worker can be someone working one Saturday a week in Tesco, and vulnerability can be defined locally case by case, I'd say that probably a lot of children not currently in school could be eligible on this basis.

Has anyone provided a link so far that shows that holiday clubs are allowed to operate?

"Out of school" care is allowed to operate, which would include some holiday clubs (mainly those based in schools, BUT it's only available for those eligible for school places. The link earlier covers it and leads to further information.

@Rosieposielaw

So we should just start ignoring the rules? Just disregard the safety of the children and staff.

I wish my children could have been safe at home, but from the begin of the lockdown last year they have had to attend.

You must have quite a lot of leave then? So take it and look after your own children. Honestly, there are so many keyworkers around, it's amazing anyone does a job that just essential. My staff do essential work. They can't be furloughed if they wanted to. But since they aren't keyworkers they must do childcare, home schooling AND work full time. You are privileged. Begrudging a few others a week of some support is downright nasty.

But as a few of us as mentioned, the list of those eligible for school places is much greater than those currently using school places. The OP was complaining that people who are not currently in school are allowed to go to the holiday club. The reality might be that everyone going to the holiday club is officially eligible for a school place but doesn't use it. If that's the case, there are no rules broken but the OP would still be annoyed because the kids going to holiday club are different from those in school. If they are OK with that then I personally don't see the difference with potentially 2 or 3 kids whose parents are at breaking point and could do with one day of respite. Holiday clubs aren't having thousands of kids are they?

In my experience the critical workers that absolutely can't function without a school place can manage just fine in the school holidays. Funny that. We're a two critical worker family, working from home and our kids classed as vulnerable because they're not engaging with school work because a) it's poor and b) we're too busy to pretend we're engaging with it. and we've not had a school place for a whole year. It's bloody awful. If there was a holiday club my kids could go to they'd be there. Your sense of entitlement and lack of empathy what other families have been going through is shocking. They're not out to contaminate your kids but probably very desperate.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-parents-and-carers-of-children-attend

www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-for-parents-and-carers-of-children-attending-out-of-school-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak?priority-taxon=b350e61d-1db9-4cc2-bb44-fab02882ac25

The above link says:

Opening of after-school clubs and out-of-school activities for children during the national lockdown
During the national lockdown, providers who run community activities, holiday clubs, breakfast and after-school clubs, tuition and other out-of-school provision for children can operate for children of critical workers and vulnerable children and young people. They should implement the protective measures guidance in place. Eligible children (children of critical workers children of critical workers and vulnerable children and young people) are able to attend.

@Frazzzledmrs

In my experience the critical workers that absolutely can't function without a school place can manage just fine in the school holidays. Funny that. We're a two critical worker family, working from home and our kids classed as vulnerable because they're not engaging with school work because a) it's poor and b) we're too busy to pretend we're engaging with it. and we've not had a school place for a whole year. It's bloody awful. If there was a holiday club my kids could go to they'd be there. Your sense of entitlement and lack of empathy what other families have been going through is shocking. They're not out to contaminate your kids but probably very desperate.

Because holiday clubs run in the school holidays. That's how people manage in the holidays.

I'm only talking of our school holiday club - very few of the workers with school places used them. A lot of them are the same people now up in arms about extending the school year. I'm just getting frustrated at policies and opinion being based on what is best for a small percentage of families when the rest of us are struggling so much. This op just makes the indifference so obvious.

Because holiday clubs run in the school holidays. That's how people manage in the holidays.

Exactly. We are completely reliant on holiday clubs for the majority of the school holidays.

@updatemate so are many families - not just keyworkers who can't work from home. That's why the OP is so out of order imo kicking off about other people attending.

[quote Frazzzledmrs]@updatemate so are many families - not just keyworkers who can't work from home. That's why the OP is so out of order imo kicking off about other people attending.[/quote]
And most of us who aren't key workers have already used a shit load of our holiday entitlement to deal with homeschooling our children.

@toots111 exactly. We've not even got to a new holiday year yet.

Frazzzledmrs

I know that lots of families rely on holiday clubs and other out of school provision. But during this lockdown, if you are not permitted a school place, you are not permitted to use holiday clubs either. If you choose not to use a school place but are allowed one, or your school has denied you a place due to capacity then that is different and you can use holiday clubs.

I assumed that the OP believes that the school has offered the holiday club to ALL children, including those not eligible for a school place at all. Which is unlawful.

@Updatemate

What are your school providing for KS1 children working at home?

They're providing 3 hours of lessons a day - 1 hour live (3x 20 minutes) 1 hour recorded and 1 hour of activities related to the live and recorded lessons. Plus reading books which parents can swap at school weekly.

Yes, the children in school are supposed have the same, but if there are too many children for the resources available in reality it can't happen. I'm ok with that, it's just life. It isn't fair but I have much bigger things to worry about and I'm glad that my children are being cared for in a safe and friendly environment. It's not ideal, they only have 1 other child in their group so whilst yes, that's 1 more peer than they'd play with at home (though there's 2 younger children at home as well), it can be a bit tug of war with regard to child 3s friendship. There's a 4th child sometimes, depending on their parents shifts which is nice.

@Updatemate I can't imagine KS1 children independently engaging with online lessons for 2 hrs. I have an upper KS2 child and a large part of their 1 hour daily lesson (which has over 50 children in with one teacher) is children making completely irrelevant remarks. So the impetus is on the parents for them to do any actual work. Children are also often more resistant to a parent 'teaching' them at home than they would be in school and it's a nightmare with more than one child doing different lessons while you are trying to respond to your own work inbox. So a group of 3 or 4 children with a TA overseeing them, reading daily with them and giving them crafts to do sounds fairly good to me (and I imagine a lot of other parents homeschooling at the moment).

But as someone upthread said we are all managing different challenges & literally no-one is in an ideal situation at the moment.