On 18 March 2020 early years providers in England were asked to close to most children, with only those from vulnerable or key worker families allowed to continue attending in order to help prevent the spread of coronavirus. Several days later, on 23 March, the Prime Minister announced that people must stay at home, starting a nationwide lockdown.
In the six months that have passed since then, the early years sector has continued to support children and their families across the country. Dealing with unprecedented challenges, practitioners have shown inspirational courage and creativity as they adjust to the ‘new normal’.
To help support our members in this time, the ÎÞÂëÌìÌà has been hard at work to respond to the sector’s needs. Between moving local meetings online, chasing the government for clarity on its guidance and sharing updates during our evenings and weekends, it’s been a very busy six months!
Here is just some of the ways we have been supporting you since the lockdown started six months ago on 23 March…
485
We have posted 485 tweets – including breaking news updates, answering questions and sharing guidance. Our tweets reached more than 1.7 million people in the past six months.
239
We have posted 239 times on Facebook – with 40% of these updates being posted outside of our usual office hours. We reached 1.5 million people and received more than 360,000 engagements – including comments, likes and shares.
43
We have sent 43 email updates to our members and subscribers. This includes our usual busy newsletters and more than 30 breaking news updates – often sent late at night or over the weekend, depending on when government guidance was announced!
ÎÞÂëÌìÌà connect
While we were unable to host our usual in-person events, and of course had to postpone our Annual Conference this year, we found new ways to connect with members. This resulted in the launch of our online ÎÞÂëÌìÌà Connect events, hosted on Zoom.
We hosted a total of 70 events, offering providers a chance to chat through common problems together.
Legal helpline
With many providers concerned about the impact of closing on their business, our 24-hour legal helpline was even busier than usual in this time. Our Law-Call team dealt with a total of 3,888 queries in six months, with many of these connected to closures, parent fees and the job retention scheme.
FAQs
Our popular FAQs page on operating in the lockdown and beyond answers 49 common questions and has been one of the most popular pages on our website throughout.
Online training
While our members took advantage of our free training courses with EduCare in record numbers, the ÎÞÂëÌìÌà team was also busy creating new training materials. In may we launched five new online courses dedicated to helping improve wellbeing during the outbreak.
Campaigning
As ever, our team has been busy calling for better support for early years providers throughout the pandemic. More than 3,000 providers and parents contacted their MP about the government’s u-turn on giving providers full access to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Press coverage
While raising concerns about the early years sector, the ÎÞÂëÌìÌà appeared in 182 separate pieces of press coverage – including national newspapers, trade press articles and TV and radio interviews. This has all helped to keep the early years sector on the agenda and help our push for better funding and support.
Next steps
Going forward, we will be keeping up the hard work to support our members – and the wider sector – however we can. Please do keep sharing your questions, thoughts and concern with us – you can get in touch at feedback@eyalliance.org.uk.
Thank you as well to those who have shared their kind comments and words of thanks in the last six months. We love hearing how our work has been helping you!