PRESCHOOLS REOPEN AS ‘SMALLIES’ GET BACK IN THE GROOVE
In another encouraging sign that Ireland is turning the tables on Covid19, preschoolers returned for duty this week. The various establishments were ready for them, with the necessary protocols all in place.
Children who attend Aim High Montessori Preschool in Kilworth were perfect examples of excited young ones as they linked up with their pals, followed by an extra long break.
Home is OK, but it’s hard to beat the interaction of friends, the stimulation of learning through play and the general feel good factor of a well run preschool. Aim High attendees were out in force on Monday morning and it didn’t take them long to get back into the swing of things.
‘FANTASTIC’ TO BE BACK
Over South Limerick way, Mary Hogan of the Boro Buddies Preschool in Anglesboro said that the children are ‘thrilled to be back and into a routine again’.
Throughout the lockdown, Mary kept in touch with children and parents and sent out tasks to parents for their children to do which kept them engaged and interacting with the preschool during lockdown. On Valentine’s Day, special packages were delivered to the Boro Buddies, letting children know she was thinking of them.
“The kids are delighted to be back, you can see it in their faces. We’re back at full numbers too which is great because we were worried that because of Covid, some of the kids might not be coming back, but it’s fantastic to see everyone back again,” Mary added.
SAFETY A CONCERN
In Ballylanders, children attending Buttercup Childcare were all smiles on their return, despite the rainy weather when The Avondhu visited.
Georgina O’Brien, owner and manager at the facility, said they are ‘ delighted’ to welcome back almost all of their preschool children this week, as well as those from Junior Infants to second class.
“Our Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) have returned at almost full capacity which is far from a safe and phased reopening as suggested by government - however, the staff are delighted to return and so are the children, but health and safety for our industry is a real concern.
“Our job on a daily basis includes face to face, up close and personal with very young children with face masks as the only form of PPE, to protect individual staff members, even those with underlying conditions and in many services, pregnant childcare educators,” Georgina told The Avondhu.
Whilst Georgina noted that the childcare and education industry have been looked after in the past by the Department in covering the initial cost of PPE supplies, she added that such costs are now ‘soaring’ and with no further funding for the measure, it is ‘simply not enough’.
PRIORITY NOW NEEDED FOR SECTOR
Childcare educators are under Cohort 11 in the vaccine schedule, meaning many educators still won’t have been offered the vaccine by the time the sector reopens in September 2021.
Georgina said that while they appreciate frontline staff, older age groups and individuals with medical conditions as a priority for the vaccine, she said that she would advocate for the childcare and education sector to be moved up to at least Cohort 6 because of the ‘close nature’ of their work with children ‘who don’t understand the concept of social distance’.
“These young children have to be assisted with personal needs, have their noses wiped and must be picked up and cuddled when they fall. It is not beyond them to sneeze into our faces regularly with no control over their actions on most occasions and not even realising the seriousness of what they have done,”
“Our staff at Buttercup Childcare overlook this and continue to care and love these children as their own, simply because they love their jobs,” Georgina added.
Calls were also made for Antigen testing kits to be provided to such childcare and education services in order to have a measure in place to confirm if the virus has a spread within the service, as many such services provide care for children whose parents are also front-line workers.
“Without this, we will have to close the service to all children within a pod or the whole service for everyone, for a whole two weeks if only one child tests positive.
“At Buttercup Childcare, we are delighted to have our doors open again and we will continue to provide the much-needed service in the locality for as long as we can. However, we are calling on the Government to prioritise childcare educators for the vaccine and start treating our sector fairly with pay and conditions in funding provided to the overall sector,” Georgina added.