How GNRC came about
Greenway Nursery was registered with Ofsted to start in September 2003. It occupies a purpose-built classroom block with a large enclosed garden on the campus of what was Greenway Junior School, Horsham, and consists of two large double rooms and a central hall, together with foyer, office, infants’ sleep room, toilets, and storage areas. In 2012 Greenway School converted to Academy status, and subsequently became part of Castle Trust. The links between Greenway Nursery and the Academy have strengthened over the years and have become collaborative and cordial. In consequence, two years ago, Greenway Nursery opened its Rainbow Club, offering Wrap-Around Care (namely Breakfast Club, After-School Club, and Holiday Club) to the pupils not only of the Academy (Years 3, 4, 5 and 6) but to those of the nearby Trafalgar Infant School (Reception and Years 1 and 2). In the case of the Infant School, we operate a free-of- charge “walking-bus” scheme, taking the younger children to their school, only 200 to 300 metres across the Recreation Ground, after their Breakfast Club, and collecting them at the end of the day for their After-School fun and activities. We now have some 80 children on roll in our Nursery, aged between 2 and 5 years old, some attending only a few sessions each week, others full time. We are registered with West Sussex County Council to offer the statutory 15 hours per week of free nursery education to all children who have attained their 3rd birthday, and also the 30 hours per week of free nursery to those working parents who qualify. Furthermore, in our Rainbow Club we now have about 100 children on roll, some attending only once a week, others nearly every day. Average daily attendance at Breakfast Club is 55, average daily attendance at After-School Club is 56. Two of the directors of Greenway Nursery & Rainbow Club (GNRC Ltd) are qualified teachers, and all staff at both Nursery and Rainbow Club are experienced and suitably qualified. We opened a Wrap-Around Childcare facility, Rustington Funstars, at Rustington Community Primary School, near Rustington in September 2018 and Beachstars January 2021. Although based ‘in-house’, so to speak, they will be very similar in most ways to our Horsham-based Rainbow Club, offering the same range of fun activities both before and after the school day to the children, and providing a much needed service for local parents.
Coronavirus in Horsham
We are continuing to keep a very close eye on the number of Coronavirus cases in the 0-4 age range in the Horsham district. We are alert to the possibility that new strains of Covid19 might erode the natural resistance that younger children have to the virus and keep the situation under constant review. We are focused on Horsham because our settings in Arun follow the schools' lead, whereas the decision to keep Greenway Nursery open is our own judgment.
20.02.21
The diligence and care continues to pay off in the Horsham area, with daily cases consistently under 20 and continuing to decline. Our rate (up to 14th February the latest reporting date) is now down to 68 per 100,000 and is still showing the trend of dropping by more than 6 per day. This is far better than my prediction for Valentine's Day in my previous post, which is great news! With talk turning ever more to the relaxing of lockdown measures, and the Prime Minister's "Roadmap" due to to be announced in the next couple of days, we can take comfort that the worst is surely behind us now. We are considerably better than the West Sussex rate of 100 per 100,000, and streets ahead of the rate for all England, which is 133.
We are now back to very reassuring numbers of cases in the 0-4 Years age group. Horsham district has seen just 1 Early Years case in the most recent 7 days that we have data for (8-14 Feb), which was the week before Half Term. I am anticipating a little rise in this after the Half Term break, depending on how strictly parents have adhered to the lockdown rules, in the same way that we saw an increase in 0-4 Years cases following the Christmas Holidays. The major difference is that back then there was so much more Coronavirus going around, and that we were given freedom to mix with other households on Christmas day. So long as the rolling average line stays below 5 cases on the graph below we will continue to operate a full nursery day without curbing the children's opportunities to explore the whole setting. I have updated the graph with the latest cases and will continue to monitor closely.
10.02.21
Cases continue to fall steadily in the Horsham area. Our rate per 100,000 is significantly better than for West Sussex as a whole and is dropping by around 6 to 8 each day. As of the latest data (4th Feb) we were at 145 per 100,000 - projecting this current rate of decline forward for 10 days, our rate will be below the 100 mark by this Sunday, 14th Feb. Positivity has dropped to around 6% and the rate of infections in the 60+ age category is lower than the average for all ages. Whilst there are still significant numbers of Coronavirus cases around, we can take comfort that things are definitely getting much better.
On the subject of good news, I was comforted to read the findings of this new study, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00024-9/fulltext which supports the growing body of evidence that it is safe for children to attend nursery. By investigating the Covid19 antibodies in children and staff at nurseries, scientists found that: nursery aged children were significantly less likely to have had the virus; that nursery staff were at about the same risk as the control group; and that where children had caught Coronavirus, they mostly likely (7 to 1) had done so at home from their parents, not at nursery.
That said, children are by no means immune to Coronavirus and it is vital that everyone in the nursery community plays their part in keeping Covid19 out of the setting. Looking at the national picture, Ofsted's reporting on Coronavirus cases on Early Years and Childcare Settings shows that there was a big increase in the number of settings each week reporting cases of Coronavirus as a result of the New Year Peak. In the latest data (W/C 18th January), there were 2279 cases where children had gone to nursery or a childminder and later tested positive for Covid19, which is about 41% of the 5530 positive cases that week for the 0-4 age group. Personally, I don't think that this is good enough, which is why we are a little fanatical about our safety measures, going significantly beyond the government's guidance in all measures. We need to have a better than 60% chance to stop a positive case from coming into the setting, which is why we do not limit our well child only policy to Covid19 symptoms.
Locally, there is far less likelihood of one of our children having Coronavirus. We continue to see infection numbers of around 1 - 1.5 cases per day in Horsham District's 0-4-year-old population (around 8000 children). I have updated the graph below to include these cases so that you can see how the trend line looks. I think that orange line sums up the situation fairly clearly - it's far better than it was but we are not out of the woods yet!
02.02.21
There is much firmer talk about getting the children back into school, so March 8th is likely to be the date to watch out for. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, is reported to have said that we have now passed the peak of Coronavirus infections, and the political priority is to get all children back into school as soon as it is safe. We are ready to step our operation back up to include those children who are currently not eligible to attend school as soon as this happens.
The rate per 100,000 people for all England is now down below the 300 threshold (294) and in Horsham we are still significantly below that national average at 207. When we talk about this 'Rate', this is a useful way to compare areas that have different populations - it refers to the number of cases per 100,000 of population in a week. To use our case as an example, it is 298 cases in the last 7 days in a population of 143500. It is similar to a percent, but is just multiplied by 1000, so when you see Horsham's rate of 207 per 100,000 this means that 0.2% of the population has had Coronavirus over that last 7 days. You can see how as the weeks go by at this sort of level your chances of coming into contact with someone the virus increases
Specifically looking at the nursery age group, the 7-day rolling average is still around one and a half cases per day, with none and then 2 cases each for 3 days up to the 27th January. I have updated the chart below to include these latest cases.
29.01.21
In Horsham, are currently seeing similar daily numbers to November, so the big peak of Christmas seems to be behind us now. However, we did have a national lockdown (except schools) in November because of concern that this was too high - it is hard to keep track of what is acceptable and what is not! Hopefully, the combination of the vaccine roll-out and the stay-at-home order in place will continue to rapidly reduce the amount of Coronavirus in the district so that we get back to safe levels soon. I was pleased to see Boris announce that he is targeting 8th March for beginning to bring the schools back but do wonder what that will look like in practice. It might mean only some year groups, or perhaps only primary school with secondary starting after Easter.
I have had a couple of questions for the blog which I can answer:
Firstly, Yes! The government guidance for nurseries definitely still applies and can be found here. This is a very long and involved document, you might wish to skip to the 'System of Controls' section to see the guidance which has shaped our revised operating procedures.
Secondly, the government do not make the case numbers by age easy to find, so do not be surprised that you cannot find it. To access the data, you need to go to the main data page https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/, and then choose 'Cases'. At the very top of the page you can choose the area, so type in Horsham, and the find the "Cases by specimen date age demographics" Heatmap. Just under the heatmap there is a button to Download and choose 'as CSV'. This will give you a spreadsheet to open. Look at Column E and you will find the data as "'age': '00_04', 'cases': 0, 'rollingRate': 110.0, 'rollingSum': 8" for each age group. I hope that helps, you can get the same data for all areas in England, but not Wales.
I have updated the chart below with Horsham's latest numbers of Coronavirus cases in the 0-4 years age group - just to remind you that this only goes up to 23rd January because of the significant reporting lag. The average daily cases is around the 1 mark, and shows no sign of increasing at the moment. Whilst this is very reassuring, it is still so very important to follow all of our procedures and ensure this 1 case a day isn't one of ours!
26.01.21
Average cases per day for Horsham have now fallen below 50 for the first time since before Christmas, demonstrating the effectiveness of the measures which are being taken. The rate per 100,000 is still falling fast and is now down to 279 (the rate for all England has now fallen to 420 per 100,000). There is not much prospect of schools opening again yet, as it is important to avoid introducing any additional mixing whilst there are still lots of people with the virus. We can live in hope that this won't be drawn out for too long, and that our leaders will allow a full reopening of schools as soon as possible.
Thank you for all of the comments around face coverings, it is useful to get parents' insight into how this feels at drop-off and collection times. The overwhelming opinion is that we should make it a rule to wear face coverings when in the school grounds. Several parents have pointed out to me that this doesn't just affect the time that parents are waiting outside the building but is also an issue when passing at the gates coming into and leaving the school site, which I never see. It is important to recognise that there will be some parents for whom this is not possible - for example we have developed something of a specialism in teaching children with hearing impairments. It is very important that these children have an unobstructed view of their parents' faces to help with communication, so we would not expect these adults to cover their faces. Please bring any concerns you have around face coverings directly to me; I wouldn't want Laura and her team to have to enforce or adjudicate this.
I have added Horsham's 0-4 years cases data for the last 4 published days (17th-20th Jan) to the graph below, it is reasuring to see that these are still very low numbers of children (0,1,2 &1) each day and that there is no sign up a resurgence amongst this age group. It is now very unlikely that the government will take any action to close nurseries in the future, as the falling rates in the general population and nationally amongst the 0-4 age group indicate that settings are not a significant vector for the virus in the grand scheme. Whilst this is great news for the children and for settings, it is not a reason to be complacent. We have very good protections in place, and I must say that families are being excellent at sticking to our rules and not taking any chances at all. It is essential that we continue to be diligent to protect the setting and each other.
22.01.21
Three more days of falling rates in Horsham. We are significantly below average at a rate of 356 per 100,000 people (the rate for all England is 484), but this is still a very high prevalence and would have been unthinkable just a couple of months ago. We must continue to be highly vigilant and do everything we can to control the spread. An area we are looking at is distancing on the playground at drop-off and collection times. Despite using 3 separate entrances spread right out, there still appears to be closer mixing than is ideal. Please email me with your views on whether we parents should wear face coverings whilst waiting (admin@gnrc.co.uk).
What we can see of the 0-4 age group appears to remain low in number. It is frustrating that we can only see back to the 16th Jan because of this time lag in the government's reporting of the data - it would be good to have more up to date numbers. Numbers are still hovering around 2 - 4 cases each day, which out of a population of around 8000 children in this age group means that there is a fairly low chance of encountering an infectious pre-school child, just as long we stick rigidly to the Well Child, Well Family Only Policy, along with all of the other revised operating procedures. If anyone in the household is feeling a bit off colour, just don't come in - stay at home and wait to see if it develops into anything. It might just be a bit of a headache which clears up in an hour, in which case just come in for the afternoon, no problem. I've updated the graph below to show these new cases.
19.01.21
Case rates in Horsham continue to fall but are still very high in the general population. The 7-day rate is currently at 384 per 100,000, with actual cases per day at around 60-70. We must remain highly vigilant to all signs of illness and not take any chances at all. If anyone in the household is feeling a bit off colour, keep the child at home to see if it develops into something.
On a positive note, prevalence of the virus in the 0-4 age group is still low and falling after a spike during the Christmas Holidays. Whilst the gov.uk heatmap looks quite alarming, this data is very poorly presented. We currently have a 5-day lag age specific reporting, so the latest data for the 0-4 years age group is 13th January, which was 2 cases. Here is a graph of the number of cases in the 0-4 age group in the Horsham District.
20.02.21
The diligence and care continues to pay off in the Horsham area, with daily cases consistently under 20 and continuing to decline. Our rate (up to 14th February the latest reporting date) is now down to 68 per 100,000 and is still showing the trend of dropping by more than 6 per day. This is far better than my prediction for Valentine's Day in my previous post, which is great news! With talk turning ever more to the relaxing of lockdown measures, and the Prime Minister's "Roadmap" due to to be announced in the next couple of days, we can take comfort that the worst is surely behind us now. We are considerably better than the West Sussex rate of 100 per 100,000, and streets ahead of the rate for all England, which is 133.
We are now back to very reassuring numbers of cases in the 0-4 Years age group. Horsham district has seen just 1 Early Years case in the most recent 7 days that we have data for (8-14 Feb), which was the week before Half Term. I am anticipating a little rise in this after the Half Term break, depending on how strictly parents have adhered to the lockdown rules, in the same way that we saw an increase in 0-4 Years cases following the Christmas Holidays. The major difference is that back then there was so much more Coronavirus going around, and that we were given freedom to mix with other households on Christmas day. So long as the rolling average line stays below 5 cases on the graph below we will continue to operate a full nursery day without curbing the children's opportunities to explore the whole setting. I have updated the graph with the latest cases and will continue to monitor closely.
10.02.21
Cases continue to fall steadily in the Horsham area. Our rate per 100,000 is significantly better than for West Sussex as a whole and is dropping by around 6 to 8 each day. As of the latest data (4th Feb) we were at 145 per 100,000 - projecting this current rate of decline forward for 10 days, our rate will be below the 100 mark by this Sunday, 14th Feb. Positivity has dropped to around 6% and the rate of infections in the 60+ age category is lower than the average for all ages. Whilst there are still significant numbers of Coronavirus cases around, we can take comfort that things are definitely getting much better.
On the subject of good news, I was comforted to read the findings of this new study, https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanchi/article/PIIS2352-4642(21)00024-9/fulltext which supports the growing body of evidence that it is safe for children to attend nursery. By investigating the Covid19 antibodies in children and staff at nurseries, scientists found that: nursery aged children were significantly less likely to have had the virus; that nursery staff were at about the same risk as the control group; and that where children had caught Coronavirus, they mostly likely (7 to 1) had done so at home from their parents, not at nursery.
That said, children are by no means immune to Coronavirus and it is vital that everyone in the nursery community plays their part in keeping Covid19 out of the setting. Looking at the national picture, Ofsted's reporting on Coronavirus cases on Early Years and Childcare Settings shows that there was a big increase in the number of settings each week reporting cases of Coronavirus as a result of the New Year Peak. In the latest data (W/C 18th January), there were 2279 cases where children had gone to nursery or a childminder and later tested positive for Covid19, which is about 41% of the 5530 positive cases that week for the 0-4 age group. Personally, I don't think that this is good enough, which is why we are a little fanatical about our safety measures, going significantly beyond the government's guidance in all measures. We need to have a better than 60% chance to stop a positive case from coming into the setting, which is why we do not limit our well child only policy to Covid19 symptoms.
Locally, there is far less likelihood of one of our children having Coronavirus. We continue to see infection numbers of around 1 - 1.5 cases per day in Horsham District's 0-4-year-old population (around 8000 children). I have updated the graph below to include these cases so that you can see how the trend line looks. I think that orange line sums up the situation fairly clearly - it's far better than it was but we are not out of the woods yet!
02.02.21
There is much firmer talk about getting the children back into school, so March 8th is likely to be the date to watch out for. Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer, is reported to have said that we have now passed the peak of Coronavirus infections, and the political priority is to get all children back into school as soon as it is safe. We are ready to step our operation back up to include those children who are currently not eligible to attend school as soon as this happens.
The rate per 100,000 people for all England is now down below the 300 threshold (294) and in Horsham we are still significantly below that national average at 207. When we talk about this 'Rate', this is a useful way to compare areas that have different populations - it refers to the number of cases per 100,000 of population in a week. To use our case as an example, it is 298 cases in the last 7 days in a population of 143500. It is similar to a percent, but is just multiplied by 1000, so when you see Horsham's rate of 207 per 100,000 this means that 0.2% of the population has had Coronavirus over that last 7 days. You can see how as the weeks go by at this sort of level your chances of coming into contact with someone the virus increases
Specifically looking at the nursery age group, the 7-day rolling average is still around one and a half cases per day, with none and then 2 cases each for 3 days up to the 27th January. I have updated the chart below to include these latest cases.
29.01.21
In Horsham, are currently seeing similar daily numbers to November, so the big peak of Christmas seems to be behind us now. However, we did have a national lockdown (except schools) in November because of concern that this was too high - it is hard to keep track of what is acceptable and what is not! Hopefully, the combination of the vaccine roll-out and the stay-at-home order in place will continue to rapidly reduce the amount of Coronavirus in the district so that we get back to safe levels soon. I was pleased to see Boris announce that he is targeting 8th March for beginning to bring the schools back but do wonder what that will look like in practice. It might mean only some year groups, or perhaps only primary school with secondary starting after Easter.
I have had a couple of questions for the blog which I can answer:
Firstly, Yes! The government guidance for nurseries definitely still applies and can be found here. This is a very long and involved document, you might wish to skip to the 'System of Controls' section to see the guidance which has shaped our revised operating procedures.
Secondly, the government do not make the case numbers by age easy to find, so do not be surprised that you cannot find it. To access the data, you need to go to the main data page https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/, and then choose 'Cases'. At the very top of the page you can choose the area, so type in Horsham, and the find the "Cases by specimen date age demographics" Heatmap. Just under the heatmap there is a button to Download and choose 'as CSV'. This will give you a spreadsheet to open. Look at Column E and you will find the data as "'age': '00_04', 'cases': 0, 'rollingRate': 110.0, 'rollingSum': 8" for each age group. I hope that helps, you can get the same data for all areas in England, but not Wales.
I have updated the chart below with Horsham's latest numbers of Coronavirus cases in the 0-4 years age group - just to remind you that this only goes up to 23rd January because of the significant reporting lag. The average daily cases is around the 1 mark, and shows no sign of increasing at the moment. Whilst this is very reassuring, it is still so very important to follow all of our procedures and ensure this 1 case a day isn't one of ours!
26.01.21
Average cases per day for Horsham have now fallen below 50 for the first time since before Christmas, demonstrating the effectiveness of the measures which are being taken. The rate per 100,000 is still falling fast and is now down to 279 (the rate for all England has now fallen to 420 per 100,000). There is not much prospect of schools opening again yet, as it is important to avoid introducing any additional mixing whilst there are still lots of people with the virus. We can live in hope that this won't be drawn out for too long, and that our leaders will allow a full reopening of schools as soon as possible.
Thank you for all of the comments around face coverings, it is useful to get parents' insight into how this feels at drop-off and collection times. The overwhelming opinion is that we should make it a rule to wear face coverings when in the school grounds. Several parents have pointed out to me that this doesn't just affect the time that parents are waiting outside the building but is also an issue when passing at the gates coming into and leaving the school site, which I never see. It is important to recognise that there will be some parents for whom this is not possible - for example we have developed something of a specialism in teaching children with hearing impairments. It is very important that these children have an unobstructed view of their parents' faces to help with communication, so we would not expect these adults to cover their faces. Please bring any concerns you have around face coverings directly to me; I wouldn't want Laura and her team to have to enforce or adjudicate this.
I have added Horsham's 0-4 years cases data for the last 4 published days (17th-20th Jan) to the graph below, it is reasuring to see that these are still very low numbers of children (0,1,2 &1) each day and that there is no sign up a resurgence amongst this age group. It is now very unlikely that the government will take any action to close nurseries in the future, as the falling rates in the general population and nationally amongst the 0-4 age group indicate that settings are not a significant vector for the virus in the grand scheme. Whilst this is great news for the children and for settings, it is not a reason to be complacent. We have very good protections in place, and I must say that families are being excellent at sticking to our rules and not taking any chances at all. It is essential that we continue to be diligent to protect the setting and each other.
22.01.21
Three more days of falling rates in Horsham. We are significantly below average at a rate of 356 per 100,000 people (the rate for all England is 484), but this is still a very high prevalence and would have been unthinkable just a couple of months ago. We must continue to be highly vigilant and do everything we can to control the spread. An area we are looking at is distancing on the playground at drop-off and collection times. Despite using 3 separate entrances spread right out, there still appears to be closer mixing than is ideal. Please email me with your views on whether we parents should wear face coverings whilst waiting (admin@gnrc.co.uk).
What we can see of the 0-4 age group appears to remain low in number. It is frustrating that we can only see back to the 16th Jan because of this time lag in the government's reporting of the data - it would be good to have more up to date numbers. Numbers are still hovering around 2 - 4 cases each day, which out of a population of around 8000 children in this age group means that there is a fairly low chance of encountering an infectious pre-school child, just as long we stick rigidly to the Well Child, Well Family Only Policy, along with all of the other revised operating procedures. If anyone in the household is feeling a bit off colour, just don't come in - stay at home and wait to see if it develops into anything. It might just be a bit of a headache which clears up in an hour, in which case just come in for the afternoon, no problem. I've updated the graph below to show these new cases.
19.01.21
Case rates in Horsham continue to fall but are still very high in the general population. The 7-day rate is currently at 384 per 100,000, with actual cases per day at around 60-70. We must remain highly vigilant to all signs of illness and not take any chances at all. If anyone in the household is feeling a bit off colour, keep the child at home to see if it develops into something.
On a positive note, prevalence of the virus in the 0-4 age group is still low and falling after a spike during the Christmas Holidays. Whilst the gov.uk heatmap looks quite alarming, this data is very poorly presented. We currently have a 5-day lag age specific reporting, so the latest data for the 0-4 years age group is 13th January, which was 2 cases. Here is a graph of the number of cases in the 0-4 age group in the Horsham District.
