Coronavirus Operational Plan
Our Bubbles
To ensure we can run our holiday club safely whilst Coronavirus is still circulating in the community, we operate our setting with ‘bubbles’ These are small groups of children cared for by consistent staff members.
We are also limiting our holiday club sessions to groups of 16 children. The holiday club children will remain separated from the younger nursery children and have their own facilities such as play rooms, garden space, toilets and hand washing. Staff do not mix between the age groups.
Social distancing at holiday club
To ensure social distancing can be maintained at our entrances, we have create two entrances with clearly marked spacing if there is a queue. Please look at the diagram below so that you know where to bring your child.
Arriving and departing from Holiday club
A member of the bubble team will ‘man’ the doors at key times during the day (8-9am, 1-1.30pm & 5-6pm).
The entrances will all be marked with social distance markings. This will ensure that the families stand 2 metres back from the door. However, the staff member will have available to them a face covering in case the child is hesitant to leave their parent. Staff must also ask parents to confirm verbally on arrival that “the child and family have been symptom free, especially a temperature”.
Parents will be advised that they MUST NOT bring their child to nursery if they have had a temperature. We will emphasise to them the anxiety that it will cause a setting to have to deal with a temperature on site. We will record this with the use of a Parents daily declaration sheet, which will be the child register sheet. The staff member admitting the child, will need to sign that they have asked the question.
A single parent will be allowed entrance to the nursery on the first settling in session for a child starting at nursery. They will be asked to not touch any items in the setting and to put on a face mask temporarily. .
Show-arounds will be conducted ‘out of hours’ and visitors will be asked not to touch any items in the setting.
Outdoor play
We have amazing outdoor spaces and we ensure the children make best use of it. Weather permitting they will be outdoors most of the day, so please ensure they have suncream applied before arrival.
Caring for a symptomatic child
We have an allocated space in the building if we have a symptomatic child. The child will be cared for by a staff member wearing PPE, until the parent arrives to collect. We ask that families take the child for a COVID test (nearest testing location is Gloucester). Test results are typically arriving within 24 hours.
Handwashing
Hand-washing is the most important action to limit the spread of the virus.
Hand-washing before and after certain activities such a toileting and eating goes without saying.
Before lock down we had already implemented enhanced hand washing and this must continue for both children and staff.
- Hand washing must be carried out on arrival at nursery for everyone.
- Hand washing must be carried out before going outside to play
- Hand washing must be carried out on coming back into to play.
- Hand washing must be carried out before eating
- Hand washing must be carried out after eating
- Hand washing must be carried out after sleeping
The list goes on. To effect this, every bubble has hand washing in their rooms and we will have new portable hand washing facilities for outside (these may not be in place on day one as Chris’s priority initially is all the fixed plumbing that is required. However, sinks and taps and water storage containers have been already purchased for 10 units).
Hand washing MUST be carried out correctly. Remember, it takes 20 seconds to clean hands and it is much more effective than sanitizer, which is a last resort if hand washing facilities are not available.
Paper towels will be used to dry hands. Lidded bins will be available for disposal of all paper products. These will be emptied as and if necessary during the day.
Children changing settings
We ask all families to leave a reasonable break between attending another setting e.g. school or another preschool, before attending our setting. This is typically 3-4 days.
Tests for COVID-19
This is just a reminder that if a child or member of staff shows symptoms of COVID or ANYONE ELSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD shows symptoms, then the whole household is required to have a test. This is to ensure that track and trace teams can follow their procedures. Any family that chooses not to have a test for their child will be required to self-isolate for 14 days and fees will be charged. The test results are typically coming back within 48 hours. Due to childhood temperatures caused by teething etc we have had many families undertake the tests successfully. We are very grateful for everyone’s co-operation and understanding in these circumstances. We are trying to ensure we are only calling parents when we feel we really have too for the protection of all families. We are now re-checking a child’s temperature after 30 minutes, to ensure it is not just a blip, and in the case of a child known to be teething we are working with the family to ensure we are balancing the inconvenience of regular tests, with professional judgements. We have been liaising with the Local Authorities on this to ensure we remain ‘reasonable’ in these difficult times.
Holidays abroad
This is just a reminder that if a child or member of staff shows symptoms of COVID or ANYONE ELSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD shows symptoms, then the whole household is required to have a test. This is to ensure that track and trace teams can follow their procedures. Any family that chooses not to have a test for their child will be required to self-isolate for 14 days and fees will be charged. The test results are typically coming back within 48 hours. Due to childhood temperatures caused by teething etc we have had many families undertake the tests successfully. We are very grateful for everyone’s co-operation and understanding in these circumstances. We are trying to ensure we are only calling parents when we feel we really have too for the protection of all families. We are now re-checking a child’s temperature after 30 minutes, to ensure it is not just a blip, and in the case of a child known to be teething we are working with the family to ensure we are balancing the inconvenience of regular tests, with professional judgements. We have been liaising with the Local Authorities on this to ensure we remain ‘reasonable’ in these difficult times.
Do you have more questions?
Our Full Operational Plan can be found here, as well as our Letter to Parents when we re-opened our nursery on 1st June for all families (we remained open for vulnerable and key-worker families from 23rd March until 1st June).