Early Years Team Update

Email dated   5.6.20

Dear Colleagues,

We hope you are keeping safe and well at this very busy time. We are aware that you are deeply engaged in undertaking detailed risk assessments for your provision and appreciate that not all of the issues are identifying can be easily resolved. Provision will be different for each setting and we continue to support your individual decision-making. Please do continue to get in touch with any specific questions or concerns and we will try to support you as best we can.

Please find below updates from the Early Years and wider LA teams.

Covid-19 Infection control and reporting

Public Health England South West has provided the following information for education settings to support infection control:

1. A flow diagram (attached) clearly laying out what to do in the event of case or outbreak in the school setting. This provides guidance on steps to be taken should you be faced with the following three key scenarios:

• • A suspected case of coronavirus in individual child or staff member
  • A confirmed case of coronavirus in individual child or staff member
  • Two or more confirmed cases in the same group

      Please note that this flow chart may change as more information becomes available nationally. We will update you accordingly.

2. A poster (attached) for schools and settings with the contact details of the Health Protection Team.

   In the event of a confirmed case, please inform Dawn Butler (dawn.butler@bristol.gov.uk)  or Nicola Theobald (_)  as well as the Public Health England, South West Health Protection Team on 0300 303 8162 so we can work with you to take swift action.

3. You will have seen last week’s expansion of testing now includes under 5s, with tests being booked through the same portal as all other age groups> Information can be found here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/testing-for-coronavirus/ask-for-a-test-to-check-if-you-have-coronavirus/

Early Years Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

We hope you have now found an opportunity to pick up your allocated PPE kit from the Bristol Education Centre. This is for use in the event of a child becoming unwell whilst attending your provision. Unfortunately, we are only able to provide a basic one-off kit in this first instance. However, the team is exploring ways in which it may be possible for the Council to support you in securing further PPE, as the need arises, and will keep you informed with any progress on this.

Bristol EYFS Unique Transitions Guidance 2020 – Covid-19 Recovery phase

We are delighted to announce the publication of the Bristol EYFS Unique Transitions Guidance 2020, a locally produced resource providing guidance to support the return or start of our youngest children into early years settings and primary schools.https://www.bristolearlyyears.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/2020/06/Unique-Transition-Guidance-for-the-EYFS-1.pdf

This timely document has been produced as a result of strong collaboration between early years and primary LA central team representatives, the Bristol Early Years Teaching School and primary school leaders. We hope it will provide a helpful reference document to support you in leading your provision during this ‘unique’ transitional phase. Our special thanks to Ali Carrington, Assistant Head, Bristol Early Years Teaching School, for her leadership and tireless commitment to producing this document within an extremely tight time frame! We attach the document as a pdf, but please also access this document via the Bristol Early Years website, as shown above.

We hope you are finding the refreshed Bristol Early Years website a helpful resource at this time. We strongly advise that you bookmark the website (www.bristolearlyyears.org.uk) and access the Early Years Covid-19 updates and latest news items on a regular basis. We continue to welcome your contributions and feedback. Please contact Beth Osborne, Foundation Years Consultant – beth.osborne@bristol.gov.uk with your news stories and resources you are willing to share with the wider early years community. We can now also be found on Twitter: @BristolEarly – please subscribe to our account.

With best wishes,

The Early Years Team

Attachments

3 Bristol EPS Coronavirus CI Procedure May 2020 Schools
4 How to contact Public Health
Educational and Childcare Settings Flowchart V1.0
Unique-Transition-Guidance-for-the-EYFS-1