Thousands of early years staff unable to access key worker places at school for their own children

Analysis by independent sector analysts Ceeda of findings from an online survey carried out by the Early Years Alliance, estimates that there are 8,000 staff working in nurseries, pre-schools and childminding settings who are currently unable to work due to an inability to access school places for their own children. 

Early years workers reported the complicated logistics of trying to continue their jobs faced with no access to school places, with some having to voluntarily go on furlough, taking their children to work to sit in the nursery office, and juggling home-schooling with their families (see case studies below).

The Alliance is calling on schools to ensure that early years staff are able to access critical worker places for their own children if they need them, following a growing number of reports of childcare workers being refused places because their partners are not classed as critical workers. 

This is despite Government guidance which states, ‘Children with at least one parent or carer who is a critical worker can go to school or college if required.’

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Early Years Alliance, said that while he understood the challenges that schools faced in keeping numbers of children attending at a ‘minimum’, he was concerned about the ‘blanket approach’ being taken by some schools of requiring both parents to be critical workers to access a school place.

‘This means that many of those working in the early years sector who genuinely do require – and are eligible for – a school place for their own children, are being prevented from accessing them,' he said.