Emergency Child Care Facility
22.3.20 Health & Safety Update – Week Beginning Monday 23.3.20 – Emergency Child Care Support
Dear Parent / Carer,
The purpose of closing schools is to restrict and minimise social contact and reduce the risk of being infected by the coronavirus. Therefore, if it is at all possible, please keep your children at home. However, when arranging childcare, please take into account government and public health advice regarding keeping at risk members of the public safe, including grandparents and any other relatives that are over 70 or have underlying medical conditions.
From Monday 23rd March, following advice from the Local Authority & Welsh Government, we will be offering child care support for families of key workers. These are the people directly involved with the immediate response to the Coronavirus outbreak, so this support is initially for children of ‘blue light’ services, health care, social care, and education to ensure that these vital workers are given every opportunity to be in work and to get on with their efforts to care for others, and protect our lives and wellbeing. This is being constantly monitored.
In the first instance, we need to identify children whose parents work in either the Health and Social Care sectors (including Homeless Hostels and Outreach), or the Emergency Services or Education.
Please can you email Emergencychildcare@badenpowell-cardiff.co.uk if you fall into any of these categories and provide:
- Your name, address, contact details
- The name(s) and age(s) of your children
- Details of any additional support needs that your children may have e.g. Medical, learning, behaviour
- Your employer and your job role
- The days and hours you would require childcare at school, including any ‘non-typical’ hours
i.e. weekends and/or hours outside 8.30am to 3.30pm
Provision at Baden Powell Primary School will be available on Monday morning 23rd March, BETWEEN 8.30am and 3.30pm (to be reviewed), if you are in one of the above categories and cannot access ANY OTHER childcare. We will confirm that you are allocated a place. Should you fall into one of the other Keyworker categories listed by the UK Government, please email Emergencychildcare@badenpowell-cardiff.co.uk and we will also collate your details and will provide further information on school access early next week. If you have pre-school children, please can you contact the Family Gateway for advice on 03000 133133.
Stay in Touch - We will review these arrangements very carefully with the Local Authority on a daily basis and will keep you up-to-date of any changes. We are confident that if this advice is followed, we will all make a significant contribution towards protecting our pupils and our staff. The guidance issued in this letter is based on the most recent advice from UK Government and from discussions across the Council. Please make sure that you use our Twitter feed, read Parent Pay messages and check the school website for all updates.
I would again like to express sincere thanks to everyone for your support and understanding at this extremely difficult and challenging time. Please stay positive, safe and indoors.
Mrs Ceri Gibbon
Acting Headteacher
If your work is critical to the COVID-19 response, or you work in one of the critical sectors listed below, and you cannot keep your child safe at home then your children will be prioritised for education provision: (health, social and emergency, and education will be 1st priority).
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 distributers of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment.
Education and childcare This includes nursery and teaching staff, social workers and those specialist education professionals who must remain active during the 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, and 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 COVID-19 response or delivering essential public services such as the payment of benefits, 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 COVID-19 pandemic), 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 This includes those who will keep the air, water, road and rail passenger and freight transport modes operating during the COVID-19 response, including those working on transport systems 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 COVID-19 response, as well as 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 and waste disposal sectors.
If workers think they fall within the critical categories above they should confirm with their employer that, based on their business continuity arrangements, their specific role is necessary for the continuation of this essential public service.
If our school is forced to close, please contact Cardiff Council (029 20 872087), who will seek to redirect you to a local school in the area that your child, or children, can attend.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision