Essential childcare only in tier 4

[PlumbNormal]

Please tell me that you don't think this means nurseries will be closed? ie does essential mean only open for keyworkers? I can't find clarity in the published guidance

It would be a bit illogical if nurseries opened to all but schools didn’t.

@Sleepdeprived42long but what about @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us post below? And the different arrangements for childminders?

@Sleepdeprived42long On the contrary, it would be completely logical to follow the accepted scientific advice that the younger the child the lower the risk. What is illogical is lumping all children in one bracket for childcare/school opening, while under 12s have been allowed to mix freely for the last 5-6 months because of an acceptance that they are very unlikely to spread it.

@PlumbNormal

Why are childminders and informal childcare arrangements allowed but nurseries aren't?

Probably just numbers - childminder with 3 or 4 children is a lot less risk than a nursery with 10-20 adults and 30, 50, 100 children, adults all doing different shifts etc.

As well as the risk aspect, nursery age children need totally constant supervision so you really can’t work and look after them.

I would suggest everyone who is concerned get in touch with their MSPs and point out all these practical issues, as well as the inconsistencies, and diversions from the accepted science on COVID19 in very young children. If this has been a lazy knee-jerk lumping of all children together, it might at least trigger a rethink, as it did in the summer when blended learning was proposed.

Exactly @ATieLikeRichardGere How are we meant to get by? How is childcare at this age not essential in a situation where a parent works full time and cannot be furloughed? School age children can function independently, toddlers can't.

That's good advice @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us - I will do this tomorrow

I’ve emailed my msp.

I will be emailing mine tomorrow. The announcement was lazy and left too many unknowns. I will see what they announce with schools tomorrow then get onto emailing if it’s not acceptable!

I have an 8 and 6 year old. If under 12s are genuinely low risk then why are primary schools physically closing until the 18th? And I think that it’s safe to say that 6 year olds cannot look after themselves (never mind homeschooling!) without a fair amount of supervision. I don’t see much difference between an almost 5 year old at a childminder and a child in primary 1 or 2 to be honest. So if one has to close to all but keyworkers children then logically so should the other.

Our childminder comes to our own home. She doesn't operate out of her own premises. Is that allowed?

@Snowdrop30

Our childminder comes to our own home. She doesn't operate out of her own premises. Is that allowed?

Sounds like a nanny rather than a childminder so will probably fall under the same rules as other people who work in private homes eg cleaners.

I’m supposed to be starting a new job on jan 4th full time. I have a nursery child too. Ahhhh could cry.

Scotgov website still says nurseries remaining open I take it the person who updates the website doesn't work weekends.

@Snowdrop30

Our childminder comes to our own home. She doesn't operate out of her own premises. Is that allowed?

Nannies were allowed throughout lockdown

@winterbabythistime

Scotgov website still says nurseries remaining open I take it the person who updates the website doesn't work weekends.

Yup. Business closure by twitter. So many won't know yet

@StatisticallyChallenged I'm not on Twitter, thankfully my nursery are on the ball and updated us as soon as they heard.

I saw it here first. But it's so poor - I wouldn't have known otherwise as this contradicts the tiers and it wasn't mentioned either

I'm so upset and feeling sorry for myself and ds tbh. I feel like I've had the worst of both 'ends' of the year. Dh and I worked from home with no childcare during the first lockdown (ds was 3 now 4), and I was pregnant. I've now got a 2 week old baby, dh hasn't had any paternity leave and ds is going to be stuck at home with us again and the weathers too bad to even do anything, at least with the first lockdown the weather was good.
Ds is already trying to adjust to having a new sibling and he absolutely loves nursery.
I'm trying to count my blessings but I feel really down. My mum said she now won't have ds in her house despite all of her promises of help.

So sorry winterbaby that sounds extremely hard.

It’s been 24 hours since they announced this by tweet, and they’re still linking people to ParentClub which is STILL not updated to say nurseries are closing! Come on ffs, we all appreciate this is a fast-moving situation but it affects so many people.

I hate that parent club website. I remember desperately reading it for tips on how to cope wfh with a 3yo and then wondering who the fuck had written it and had they ever met a pre-schooler.

@Sleepdeprived42long If you read @Y0uCann0tBeSer10us post earlier about the transmission data it's clear that age range IS important here and primary age is much broader than under 5s (5-12!) Your post sounds like 'well if it's bad for me it should just be bad for all of you too'.

@winterbabythistime I'm so sorry, that does sound hard. I hope your mum changes her mind - informal childcare is allowed.

Toddlers don't sit and play by themselves, you have to be there all the time. They can't work independently like school-age children. What is the full time working parent meant to do with no access to childcare? How does this not count as essential? For the sake of the economy, for the sake of our mental health. I would never want to put my child in danger. but if the data sets under 5s off from older children why can't early years education be considered separately?

I cried yesterday when I saw this news on Twitter. I'm not sure I can cope again with DH and I doing high pressure jobs from our kitchen table whilst our very very lively four year old crashes around us.

She needs to be in nursery - she has a lot of difficulty with social skills (she is in the system for a possible ASD diagnosis) and last lockdown set back her progress hugely. I'm so worried about her starting school in August as it is, without months more disruption beforehand.