{"id":416,"date":"2020-03-27T17:42:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-27T17:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=416"},"modified":"2020-03-28T08:47:08","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T08:47:08","slug":"responding-to-events-keyworkers-fees-childcare-arrangements-club-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/club\/responding-to-events-keyworkers-fees-childcare-arrangements-club-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Events &#8211; Keyworkers &#8211; Fees &#8211; Childcare Arrangements &#8211; Club &#8211; The Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The past couple of weeks has been a busy time and an often very confusing one . . . . . to say the least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Government has published many dozens of Guides for all\nareas of industry and commerce and many apply to us.&nbsp; The most recent specialist Guide is this one:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures\/coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures\">coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It establishes our modus operandi until further notice and is very specific in some of its demands.&nbsp; It is also quite woolly in some areas too, which means that we have to fill in some of the gaps as best we can.&nbsp; I think we, that is Rachel, the Trustees and the Management Committee, have done pretty well so far in such a rapidly changing climate.&nbsp; There have been evenings in the past fortnight where emails, phone texts and WhatsApp messages have been whizzing around the ether at dizzying speed!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I must put the Nursery into some commercial context:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>as a charity we are obliged to meet all the\nrequirements of the Charity commission and the Trustees have very clear and\nsometimes onerous responsibilities in this respect.<\/li><li>We are registered by Ofsted, so have to comply\nwith the laws that apply to Early Years settings<\/li><li>We have a contract with KCC and are beholden to\nthem for many things but principally our Funding for 3 and 4 year olds (and\nsome 2 year olds) which we receive from them each term to partially cover those\nfree hours we pass on to parents as Universal (15 hours) and Extended (30\nhours) entitlements.<\/li><li>And we have to comply with all the usual rules,\nregulations and laws that businesses have to<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So, if our reaction to events seems somewhat tardy on occasion you\u2019ll know why!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-color has-background has-very-light-gray-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-background-color\">The Nursery is currently open to ensure that keyworkers have somewhere safe to leave their children when they go off to work.&nbsp; We immediately think of doctors and nurses and other emergency services and maybe the support staff needed to keep them working effectively.&nbsp; But who cleans the hospital wards?&nbsp; Who supplies all the bandages, masks and the thousands of other items needed?&nbsp; Who maintains the equipment?&nbsp; How do they get to work?&nbsp; And so on.&nbsp; The point is, it\u2019s not easy to define a keyworker and boy, are we aware of that!&nbsp; But, I can tell you that all of our parents have taken the view that their health, their family\u2019s health and that of our staff and the children they look after is the most important factor when taking decisions about their working practices during this crisis.&nbsp; We have 60 children on our roll.&nbsp; 3 children are in the Nursery today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>March Fees<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Everyone has been invoiced for the whole of March and most have paid (thank you).\u00a0 Most children will not have attended since the 20th, but we will be paying all the staff their full salary for the month, so, if possible, we would prefer not to raise credit notes and pay refunds to parents.\u00a0 However, I know that some of you have been knocked sideways by the crisis, so if you cannot afford to take this generous approach please let me know; email me with your request and your bank details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Childcare arrangements and fees from April<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your child cannot attend Nursery then we will not be\ncharging a fee.&nbsp; Your child\u2019s place will be\navailable when we reopen fully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many of our parents have asked us to continue invoicing them\nat 50% of their normal rate and for this, we are very grateful.&nbsp; Yes, we hope to be taking advantage of the\nGovernment\u2019s Job Retention Scheme and KCC have said we can keep all the funding\nfor the Summer Term, but this will still \u2018leave us short\u2019.&nbsp; So your continuing financial support will be\nvery welcome.&nbsp; I will prepare and send\nout these invoices in the next few days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you are a keyworker, I hope you know by now that, you are very welcome to bring your child to Nursery if he or she is not able to be cared for safely at home (provided, of course, that we&#8217;ve received confirmation from your employer).&nbsp; We know that your rotas are likely to change and change again over the coming weeks, but if you could let us know by Friday of each week if and when your child will be attending the following week, that would help us enormously.&nbsp; Otherwise please give us as much notice as possible (at least 24 hours).&nbsp; Just call the Nursery or email Rachel: <a href=\"mailto:rachel.walkling@sdn.org.uk\">rachel.walkling@sdn.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As regards fees, we will raise an invoice at the end of the month for days attended unless you would prefer us to invoice you as normal for your child\u2019s normal days.&nbsp; Yes, I\u2019m being cheeky, but if you don\u2019t ask, you don\u2019t get!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Club<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Easter Club has been cancelled.&nbsp; Spring Club at the end of May is extremely doubtful.&nbsp; I would expect Summer Club (from 23<sup>rd<\/sup> July) to go ahead, but we\u2019ll confirm this nearer the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>And when the crisis is over?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We\u2019ll be here!&nbsp; We are aiming to re-open as soon as we can with all the same familiar faces in the same (increasingly) familiar building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The past couple of weeks has been a busy time and an often very confusing one . . . . . to say the least. The Government has published many dozens of Guides for all areas of industry and commerce and many apply to us.&nbsp; The most recent specialist Guide is this one: coronavirus-covid-19-early-years-and-childcare-closures It&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,30],"tags":[61,44,5,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":422,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sdn.org.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}