Concern as reports of Covid in early years settings more than double in a week

There were 1,267 reported Covid cases in early years setting in England in the week beginning Monday 4 January, a steep rise from the 582 cases reported a week earlier.

In response to the data, both the Early Years Alliance and National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) have called for urgent action to protect the early years workforce. They have reiterated their demand for all providers to have access to proper testing kits, rather than ill-defined ‘priority’ access at community testing centres, and for early years practitioners to be prioritised as a key occupation for the vaccination programme.  

While the data represents the number of settings that have notified Ofsted of coronavirus, it does not reflect the actual number of positive cases which may be multiple, meaning that the numbers of children and practitioners affected are likely to be higher.

Early years and childcare providers must notify Ofsted of confirmed cases of coronavirus in the setting ‘as soon as reasonably practicable’. This means that the data received in one week could represent confirmed cases which occurred during the two previous weeks, in this case during the Christmas holiday period.

There is also no breakdown of how many staff or children tested positive. 

‘It is incredibly concerning to see a sharp rise in the number of early years providers reporting Covid cases, especially when the statistics only show the number of reports, and not the number of actual cases,’ said Early Years Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch. ‘Our latest survey showed half of early years providers do not feel safe at work and evidence of a rapidly growing number of coronavirus cases will do nothing to put them at ease.

‘The Government has repeatedly failed to provide any clear evidence that early years settings are safe not only for children, but for the adults who work in them. Given concerns that the new variant of Covid-19 is not only more transmissible, but also potentially poses a greater risk to health, Government must do all it can to protect the early years workforce.’

Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of NDNA, said that the safety of children and practitioners in early years settings is the number one priority for providers.

‘Nurseries are doing all they can to minimise the risk within settings but these figures reflect the high level of community transmission across the country,’ she said.

‘However, this data is by notification rather than actual numbers of cases in individual settings. For each nursery there could be a number of staff absent and more children missing out on early education. We need to see the breakdown of how many cases this represents and how many refer to children and to staff.

‘We know that nurseries are really struggling to remain open due to staff absences and we are carrying out more research about this shortly. In November, 73 per cent of nurseries told us they had been forced to close at some point due to Covid, clearly that figure will be higher now.

‘This situation cannot be ignored, nurseries and children are suffering and must be protected and prioritised.’