AnonyMouse_14268

This is a hot topic on FB keeping early year’s unique page at the moment. Someone has written the following letter to their MP. I feel we will be thrown under the bus. I wrote to my MP yesterday : I hope this finds you safe and healthy. I am a primary school teacher, teaching Reception. I am deeply troubled by the recent talk of schools reopening in May. I write to ask you to please raise my concerns (which many of my colleagues share) once parliament reopens. I am deeply sceptical of the very limited study which claims that school closures have minimal impact on the spread of Coronavirus. In the weeks before school closed, I spent most of my time and energy reminding my pupils to wash their hands. Which they did with varying degrees of efficacy, only to then put their hands straight back up their noses, into their mouths or into their pants, and then would touch door handles, furniture, each other or the pens and resources. Even where children are given their own pens to use all day (really hard to monitor or enforce in Reception) they forget, share, pass pens to each other, swap lids by mistake, put these in their mouths... Children (especially the very young) do not understand social distancing. They play together, they share resources, they hug and dance and hold hands. It is not possible to stop this and trying to do so is damaging to them. This is particularly true because most schools are not vast. They have corridors, narrow corridors at that, and small classrooms. There is not the space to seat children 6 feet apart. Carpet sessions cannot be delivered as children can't sit together on the carpet. In EYFS especially, children don't usually have table spaces and are generally taught between carpet sessions and free flow play based learning. You cannot be socially distant in EYFS. Paul Cosford of PHE has been quoted as saying 'children are at very low risk of getting complications from this disease.' That's all well and good, but children are not the only people who attend schools. Are staff essentially being sent in as cannon fodder? Does it not matter if/when we get the virus? What about the parents gathering in swarms to drop off and pick up children? What about the grandparents? Children are not alone at school, there are adults there. Children are not alone at home, there are adults there. Schools reopening will put adults and children alike at a hugely increased risk. Even if it were available, staff cannot wear PPE and teach. Children cannot hear teachers talking through masks. It cannot work. Cleaning supplies and sanitiser is hard to come by. It feels as if teachers are being sacrificed for the economy. Shielding for the vulnerable is not due to end/be reviewed until mid June. How are schools to run effectively, if at all, with huge numbers of staff absent? My children's school has dozens of staff shielding, including the head teacher. How can that be managed? I am working incredibly hard to teach and reassure and care for my pupils at a distance, and work hard when I go in for key worker children, and I find it terrifying. Every time I come home I wonder if I have brought the virus home to my own family, as my sister and her husband (front line NHS staff) have. It is scary. And that is for half a class worth of children. I miss my class so much and I would love to be working with them again, but only when it is safe. As a mother, I do not want my children at school until it is safe. Safe. Not slightly reduced risk. Please, please, speak for us. We are scared and we deserve to be safe. So do our children.

Has anyone thought about any practical steps we can take to reduce risk whenever we return? I guess we will get support and advice but I am thinking of; This is just early ideas that have been swirling around in my head. Reducing the amount of toys/resources we have available on a daily basis and all toys have to be cleaned at the end of the day. Parents do not enter the setting, children are dropped and collected at the door. Book bags and book borrowing will no longer take place. Children's bags on pegs with spare clothes in are not taken home but refilled in situ. Children with signs of any type of illness, temperature etc will be excluded.

Sunnyday I am dreading going back sooner rather than later. How on earth will we manage distancing with children, it just will be impossible and unworkable, not to mention the practical side of maintaining the cleaning of toys to a high enough standard. We all know how we are sneezed and coughed over in normal circumstances how do we reduce that risk? I am watching Denmark with interest as they have just opened all Nursery and primary schools. (Have you seen Whuan has had an increase of 50% since they came out of lockdown) Not to mention the same old problem of parents saying “well they are not well, but they wanted to come”. Just read this back when I posted it and it comes over as very selfish, when I think about what the NHS frontline staff are risking everyday. But I can’t help how worried returning to school is making me feel.

Wiltshire Council has been urged to reconsider plans to cut the amount of funding passed on to early years providers who have temporarily closed in response to the coronavirus crisis. Providers were contacted by the local authority on 9 April, informing them that settings that have closed will only recieve 80% of their early years entitlement funding for the summer term. Wiltshire Council says that the cut will help fund a new "incentive scheme" that will see providers who have remained open given an extra £100 a week for each child that they continue to care for. The Alliance has written to the local authority asking it to reconsider its position.

Did you see that Wiltshire are only paying 80% to their providers!

My brother and all his family from Kent (including my four month old grand Nieces who I haven’t yet met) are all meant to be down here on holiday this week. It’s so sad seeing the twins growing so quickly and I haven’t even had a cuddle yet. They have postponed until June, but who knows what will happen by then.

I’m just in the middle of knocking up a batch of Christmas buns ( sorry said the C word) but I accidentally got sent dried cranberries instead of cherries by a supplier. These are a Paul Hollywood recipe and are lovely! Just time consuming with the proving etc.

I must admit that we too are kind of planning life around meals! It’s actually one of the positive things to come out of this awful time, we are all home every night to eat together. We sat down at tea time tonight to plan this weeks menu as we are having to brave the supermarket tomorrow🙁 We we’re lucky tonight as my sons friend is a commercial fisherman and dropped some cod in for us. It was very nice!

Snap. My husband raised his eyebrows but is certainly enjoying the daily bread and goodies!

I too had to order 16 kG of bread flour but am baking so much am getting through it.

Thank you Sue xxx

I would be lost if I couldn’t get out for a walk each day and very very blessed that we are so rural.

There are gremlins in the system!

That’s what I was worried about!

Thank you for sharing that. Much appreciated.

I put all children either new or moving onto funding onto my headcount. Does anyone know if there has been absolute clarification yet about furloughing whilst still in receipt of funding? I know the EYA we’re onto it but haven’t heard anymore.

I’m really confused, it was me that asked about the memo feature in my post!

We have loads of activity ideas ready to publish on Tapestry. I have asked for parents to let us know how they get on with these if they do them. I have also asked them to also just add photos and let us know what the children have been up to, just as a way of keeping connected. Some parents have done this and it’s lovely. I am also writing a message to the children on these obs and hope the parents read it back to them. Is anyone using the memo feature on Tapestry to add activity ideas? I have been adding activity’s as a normal observation but am thinking at the end of the year when it comes to downloading LJs it will make it too large.

There is a week two but am now wondering if I should have shared in the first place😬. Can someone tell me from admin if it’s ok to share these or not.

I have only braved reading a story so far on Tapestry and that was nerve wracking enough! I am ALWAYS behind the camera and NEVER in front of it😬

Myself and my deputy are still adding stuff to Tapestry for families, I really don’t think that the government will be that strict to say we can’t do that, will they? You have me worried now!

I wish they would hurry up and clarify the situation. If we can receive funding and still furlough staff, I am going to be the only one not furloughed as I still need to input wages to payroll etc. We thought this would be the safest bet.

Saw the first bluebells of the year today🙂

Hi Mouseketeer, I contacted them this week to see if we can furlough staff whilst in receipt of our funding. She is waiting for more info and will hopefully let us all know next week. So if we can then yes we will be! Devon payroll have been fabulous haven’t they about keeping us informed. Such a good service. So very glad I followed your recommendation. X

🤣You crazy ladies don’t seem so crazy now!