Leading nurseries are urging the government to let them help primary schools cope with social distancing rules by allowing children to stay in their pre-school classes for months longer than planned.
Primary schools are expected to be the first to reopen, but many are concerned about the basic practicalities of doing so. A group of 70 prominent providers has written to ministers, setting out how the nurseries can help. It says that encouraging more children to start school in January or April next year, rather than this September, could ease the problems and help children cope with life after lockdown.
“We are very aware of the difficulties faced by young children who will be transitioning back into settings, and for some also due to move on to primary school settings in just a few months, having spent in many cases a number of months away from their key attachments and familiar learning environments,” the group writes.
As well as protecting the emotional wellbeing of children, the group says it would ease the “ongoing social distancing demands placing additional pressure on schools”.
Such a move would not require changes in the law, but the group says it would need schools to guarantee places for children starting later in the academic year. It would also require councils to pay schools as if the children had started in September, as well as continuing to fund the pre-school places.
The Early Years Covid 19 Response group, which includes Kids Planet, Care Concern Nurseries and Old Station Nurseries, also calls for clarity on how councils will help them through the transition period as parents return to work, as well as clear advice on the use of personal protective equipment.
It comes with a crisis looming in post-coronavirus childcare. More than 10,000 childcare providers in the UK are likely to have folded or gone out of business by the end of the lockdown, according to survey by the Childcare online platform.
