Archive for year: 2020

The Scottish Government is asking each childcare provider that is NOT a local authority setting to complete this short online form from THURSDAY 26^TH MARCH by 3.00 pm each day until further notice.

This includes private and third-sector childcare services including nurseries, out of school care and childminders. Information in relation to local authority settings will be gathered on a separate survey.

Childcare providers in the voluntary and private sectors and childminders are asked to provide information on:  

• whether they are open or closed
• the number of ELC practitioners working in the setting
• the number of children attending (including those classed as “vulnerable”, those of key workers, and those attending solely for the purposes of taking a meal).

This form is designed to provide Scottish Ministers with regular and timely information in relation to COVID-19

Click here to access the form

The Scottish Government has provided further guidance on ‘What is meant by a key worker’. They state:

“Local authorities should put in place provision to ensure that children of key workers, for example, NHS and social care staff, have continuing access to appropriate learning and childcare that allows their parents/carers to participate in the national response to COVID-19. There should be a presumption that, if parents can make their own childcare arrangements within the community, they should do so. If one parent is a key worker and the other is not, the non-key worker should normally be expected to provide childcare.

A definition of key workers is provided here. There should be a particular focus on:

Key workers in posts which ensure that essential services can be delivered and cover tasks within the local community which support the vulnerable and aid community resilience. This may be slightly different in each community to allow the country to address local priorities. Whilst decisions will be taken at the local level, we would expect this to include consideration of:

Category 1 – Health and Care workers directly supporting COVID response, and associated staff; Health and Care workers supporting life-threatening emergency work, as well as critical primary and community care provision; Energy suppliers (small numbers identified as a top priority already); staff providing childcare/learning for other category 1 staff.

Category 2 – All other Health and Care workers, and wider public sector workers providing emergency/critical welfare services (e.g Fire, Police, Prisons, Social Workers, etc), as well as those supporting our Critical National Infrastructure, without whom serious damage to the welfare of the people of Scotland could be caused.

Category 3 –  All workers without whom there could be a significant impact on Scotland (but where the response to COVID – 19, or the ability to perform essential tasks to keep the country running, would not be severely compromised).

Local authorities should be guided by this definition and prioritise the provision of arrangements accordingly. They should consider any circumstances that mean that specific classes of worker are critical in their local contexts”.

The guidance for educational and Early Learning and Childcare settings has now been updated and incorporated into the following general advice for all non-healthcare settings: https://www.hps.scot.nhs.uk/web-resources-container/covid-19-guidance-for-non-healthcare-settings/.  You will see it has some specific material for educational settings in Section 2, as well as other advice that applies more generally.

The guidance includes useful Educational resources for use in childcare and educational settings on page 12.

NHS has also provided us with a short animated video to support conversations and developing our children’s understanding of the virus – ‘Child-friendly explanation of Coronavirus (COVID-19)’