Our New Normal
Although Seedlings was open during the Lockdown to play our part in accommodating priority children, preparing to re-open more generally from 1 June presented a variety of additional challenges. Our first few days enabled us to refine and tweak the measures we had already put in place.
We have two priorities:
1. How to keep everybody – children, their families and Seedlings staff – safe
2. How to ensure the children’s social and emotional well-being
Keeping everybody safe depends on social distancing and really good hygiene. Here’s what’s happening:
- Dropping off: Parents need to hold their child’s hand and observe a 2m distance as they approach the building. The child is welcomed in and the parent leaves immediately. This ensures no children are running around outside before coming in.
- On pick-up: Children will be handed over to their parents one by one at a 2m distance from the door. Again, they need to hold their parent’s hand as they leave.
- We’ve rearranged our furniture to create 2m distance between the children when they’re busy at a table and we supervise them carefully to make sure they don’t get too close to each other when moving about indoors, or playing outside.
- Washing hands: On arrival and before leaving Seedlings, often during the day, before and after eating, and after being in the toilet or blowing their nose.
- Furniture and the toilets are cleaned at frequent intervals during the day; soft furnishings such as the sofa have been temporarily removed.
- Any soft toys have been removed and equipment is cleaned in between use.
- Food hygiene: All the children have their own water bottles, and only handle their own lunchboxes and eat their own food prepared at home. All lunchboxes and water bottles must be cleaned thoroughly at home before being brought into Seedlings, and again when they are brought back home.
- In Seedlings all used plates and cutlery are soaked in very hot water before being thoroughly cleaned.
- Parents must not bring a child with Covid-19 symptoms (cough, temperature, loss of taste or smell) to Seedlings
- If parents have felt the need to give their child Calpol they must not bring the child to Seedlings.
- If a child becomes unwell during the session a teacher separates them from the other children and stays with them until they are collected by their parents, who will have been contacted immediately and asked to come right away to pick their child up. The child will not be allowed back into Seedlings until they are fully better or until 14 days of isolation have passed in the case of Covid-19 symptoms.
Because of our Montessori way of working with the children, where we encourage a high degree of independence at Seedlings, resulting from very careful demonstrations of how and when to do things, our children are very used to focusing on what to do and how to do it. So it has not been difficult to change routines and introduce new ways of behaving in the setting.
An initial worry that the children would be anxious about coming back has proved unfounded – they have been really pleased to be back in their own environment, and although this does look a little different, small children’s memories are often hazy, and they live in the moment. So, on the whole, what’s happening now, is for them just that – it’s what’s happening now.
For us the main thing is to make sure that the children don’t become stressed by the situation as perceived by adults, that they remain emotionally resilient and happy to be back with us at Seedlings, and for us to answer any questions they may come up with as truthfully and factually as possible, always keeping in mind what we know about each individual child’s emotional landscape and family circumstances.