Children: Day Care

(asked on 1st July 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, when he plans to publish updated guidance on enabling regulated childcare settings which operate outside school hours to reopen for (a) children of key workers and (b) all children.


Answered by
Vicky Ford Portrait
Vicky Ford
This question was answered on 6th July 2020

The department has published guidance for providers who run community activities, holiday clubs, after-school clubs, tuition and other out-of-school provision for children over the age of 5. It sets out the safety measures that must be in place to ensure they can operate over the summer holiday. The guidance is available at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protective-measures-for-holiday-or-after-school-clubs-and-other-out-of-school-settings-for-children-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak.

This follows confirmation from my right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister, that from Saturday 4 July, these providers can operate over the summer holiday, with safety measures in place.

While schools are open in a provider’s local area, providers of these settings should follow the same protective measures as schools to limit different groups of children mixing. This means that if a setting opens before the end of the 2020 summer term, they should ensure they are:

  • only caring for children from the eligible groups (children in early years, Reception, year 1 and year 6) and priority groups (children of critical workers and vulnerable children);
  • only caring for children from one school or early years provider; and
  • working closely with the school or early years providers that their children attend, to ensure that, as far as possible, children are kept in the same small consistent groups that they are in throughout the day, and otherwise maintain social distance.

When state schools in a local area have closed for the summer term, out-of-school settings must operate in line with the published guidance and children of all ages and mixed schools may attend out-of-school settings in that area.

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