Dear parent/carer
You may be aware that the City of Edinburgh Council has set up locality hubs for children of Key Workers. If you have been allocated a place in school follow the chart to see if your child should attend. It is vital for the safety of the staff supervising the hubs that only those children for whom both parents are key workers of which neither can work from home send their children.
How do I know If I’m a Key Worker (adapted from Scotgov website)
· Category 1 – Health and Care workers directly supporting COVID response, and associated staff; Health and Care workers supporting life threatening emergency work, as well as critical primary and community care provision; Energy suppliers (small numbers identified as top priority already); staff providing childcare/learning for other category 1 staff.
· Category 2 – All other Health and Care workers, and wider public sector workers providing emergency/critical welfare services (e.g Fire, Police, Prisons, Social Workers, etc), as well as those supporting our Critical National Infrastructure, without whom serious damage to the welfare of the people of Scotland could be caused.
· Category 3 – All workers (private, public or third sector) without whom there could be a significant impact on Scotland (but where the response to COVID-19, or the ability to perform essential tasks to keep the country running, would not be severely compromised).
Local authorities have been asked to take this definition as a guide and prioritise critical childcare and learning for key workers accordingly. They should consider any circumstances that mean that specific classes of worker are critical in their local contexts.
Will all key workers qualify for critical childcare and learning provision?
We have told local authorities that, if one parent is a key worker and the other is not, the non-key worker should normally be expected to provide childcare. If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they should be.
In general, we expect that if key workers can perform their critical functions effectively when working remotely from home, they should do so. Please consider carefully any appropriate alternative childcare arrangements that can be put in place before seeking critical childcare and learning provision.
