After School Clubs: Social Distancing

(asked on 30th June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment his Department has made of effect on the feasibility of social distancing due to the covid-19 outbreak at after-school clubs operating at schools from September of the (a) number of children attending and (b) the number of children from different school bubbles attending those clubs.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 8th July 2020

The Department has published guidance on the full opening of schools from September. It advises that schools should consider resuming any breakfast and after-school provision, where possible, from the start of the autumn term. Such provision will help ensure pupils have opportunities to re-engage with their peers and with the school, ensure vulnerable children have a healthy breakfast and are ready to focus on their lessons, provide enrichment activities, and also support working parents. The guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/actions-for-schools-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak/guidance-for-full-opening-schools.

We recognise that this will be logistically challenging for schools. Schools should carefully consider how they can make such provision work alongside the wider protective measures the guidance supports them to put in place, including keeping children within the year groups or smaller bubbles they are in during the school day, where possible. If it is not possible to maintain bubbles being used during the school day then schools should use small, consistent groups in their breakfast and after-school activities.

Schools can consult the guidance produced for summer holiday childcare, available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/protective-measures-for-holiday-or-after-school-clubs-and-other-out-of-school-settings-for-children-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak/protective-measures-for-out-of-school-settings-during-the-coronavirus-covid-19-outbreak, as much of this will be useful in planning extra-curricular provision. This includes schools advising parents to limit the number of different wraparound providers they access, as far as possible.

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