Dear Parents and Carers
From the end of today schools across the country will be closing until further notice.
It is, however, vital that Aberdeen City Council continue to provide essential services across the city. As such, where we can, we are making childcare places available for key workers.
340 childcare places are being offered to ‘key workers’ during the school closure period. We are also working on plans to increase this number should demand be greater.
In the first instance these places will be offered to key workers within the category 1 definition by Scottish Government today. These are identified as:
- Health 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.
Provision will be supported by Education and Childcare Services staff with appropriate qualifications and training and offered in a range of locations across the City.
Pending final sign off by the Care Inspectorate, we hope this service could be operational by Monday 23rd March.
Key workers should apply for a place by completing this form- Emergency childcare provision.
Integrated Children & Family Services will prioritise these offers and make contact with you following allocation of places and confirm offer and placement of provision.
Any worker who is not Category 1 as defined above but who is one the list of Key Workers provided by UK Government will be regarded as a category 2 priority given the limited number of spaces currently available. If you fall under this category you can also make an application, however, priority will be given to category 1 parents/guardians in the first instance.
Please also be aware that registrations should be received by 2.30pm today (March 20th) for those that wish to start on Monday, however this will be a rolling application process so we will continue to take applications for days beyond that.
If a place is not made available to you at this time, please be assured that ongoing review of applications will take place to enable us to support as many key workers as possible.
Please complete the form or email contact our Education Support Team for further information. BuildingCapacityTeam@aberdeencity.gov.uk
Regards
Angela Scott
Chief Executive