Get started today.

Coronavirus Resource Centre

Covid 19

Mar

2020

3 min of reading

During this uncertain time, we want to provide our Customers with reassurance and support. We’ve collected the latest UK Government advice and resources to help you stay informed and keep parents happy.

For information on how we’re operating during this time, visit:

Government Advice

Advice from the government is changing constantly, this page is updated every day at 2pm and is a reliable resource for general advice.

You can also find general health advice on the NHS website.

To keep track of information regarding Early Years closures, the DfE has released some useful information.

Business Support

New measures to protect businesses are being announced constantly, which have been set out by Chancellor, Rishi Sunak. These include:

A Government initiative to pay up to 80% of employees wages was announced in an effort to minimise job losses. This scheme should come into effect by the end of April and will cover wages up to £2,500 a month.

All UK businesses are eligible for support through deferring VAT and Income Tax payments and will apply from 20 March 2020 until 30 June 2020.

The government will bring forward legislation to allow small-and medium-sized businesses and employers to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) paid for sickness absence due to COVID-19 for businesses with less than 250 employees.

Nurseries won’t have to pay business rates for the next year. All nurseries are eligible and this will be done automatically for you! This will apply to your next council tax bill in April 2020

News for Nurseries

Most importantly, the government announced that nurseries forced to close will continue to receive government funding.

You can find rolling updates on how OFSTED will be functioning on the government website. At the moment, they have suspended all routine inspections, however urgent inspections where concerns have been raised will still go ahead.

The list of key workers for education settings has been released by the government.

The Early Years Alliance has released a lot of useful information which is industry specific and may be useful.

The Department for Education has also started up a helpline which you can reach by calling 0800 046 8687 or sending an email to DfE.coronavirushelpline@education.gov.uk

Make the Most of Blossom

Our platform will remain up and running and most importantly, we will be innovating. You will see lots of new features and released over the upcoming weeks and months providing you with a little bit of good news in this difficult time.

Newsletters

To help support you, we’ve released our newsletter feature early! With our new newsletter feature, you can keep staff and families in the loop. Heres a few ideas!

Activity at Home Sheets.

These can be EYFS focused or simply something spontaneous. We have a few examples to download on our Corona Resource Centre.

Parents can also use our Parent App to respond & show you how they’ve got on at home. Parents can add photos & descriptions meaning there is no reason why a child’s learning journey needs to go on pause.