Kiddies Heaven & Covid-19

What is Covid-19?

Human Coronaviruses are common throughout the world. There are many different coronaviruses identified in animals but only a small number of these can cause disease in humans.

On 7 January 2020, ‘Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2’ (SARS-CoV-2) was confirmed as the causative agent of ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019’ or COVID-19. The majority of the case-patients initially identified were dealers and vendors at a seafood, poultry and live wildlife market in China. Since then, the virus has spread to more than 100 countries, including South Africa.

Kiddies heaven and Covid-19

Covid-19 Information

The information on this page is to let you know how we have been organizing our centers since we have been opened in July. Most of our learners will be returning to our centers from this month (September) and as you all know we are still not allowed to operate with full classes. We are really looking forward to seeing you all again and want you to know how we will be caring for your children when they are with us.  We hope you find the information on these pages useful, and if you have any other questions,
please just ask us.

Parents – What you need to know

We are very much looking forward to welcoming the children back to our centers in September and returning to as close to normality as possible. After a long period out of formal schooling, it is important to get our children back into school routines.

We appreciate that parents may have reservations about sending their children back to our centers. We have put in place several protective measures, based on all the available guidance, to manage the risks and protect the health, safety and wellbeing of our children, staff, and families. I hope that the details outlined in previous letters and in this one will answer your questions about providing reassurance.

 

Our plan to manage the risks associated with Covid-19 focuses on two main elements

  1. Limiting contact – small groups and social distancing
  2. Hygiene measures – personal hygiene and cleaning
Limiting contact

Contact will be limited by allocating children to groups.  We will monitor our class numbers and make alternative arrangements if necessary, to accommodate our learners and to ensure all safety measures are adhered to. If push comes to shove, we will communicate with our parents to move children between classes to maintain small numbers in classes.

 

Adults will not be permitted onto the school site at drop off times but, to ensure safety of children.  Please be patient, the screening, scanning, and sanitizing takes time so work it into your program not to be in a hurry when you drop your child in the morning.  More parents will be queuing from Monday please keep your distance.  We will adapt to the demand.

To effectively reduce risks associated with large groups of people mixing, it is vital that parents maintain social distancing during drop off and collection times.

Gathering at the school gates and coming into school without an appointment will not be allowed. Any queries or questions will need to be raised by email or telephone.

Any visitors to school will be asked to adhere to our hygiene and social distancing procedures to protect themselves and others.

Within our centers, we will also promote social distancing and a ‘no touch policy’, both in class and during playtimes as far as possible, bear in mind we work with little people that have been taught to share and care.  We know that for our younger children, social distancing will be incredibly difficult and so, although we will still promote ‘no touch’, our focus for the younger ones will be on good hygiene and maintaining cleanliness within the learning environments.

Hygiene measures:

The first of these is the implementation of regular hand washing/sanitizing; we will ensure that children wash or sanitize their hands regularly throughout the day. This will take place as soon as they arrive at school in the morning, at the end of each break, after going to the toilet and before eating.

Children will also be encouraged to adopt the ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ approach if they have a cough or sneeze and not to touch their face.

Each classroom and play areas have ‘sanitation stations’ where all necessary resources will be available – hand wash, sanitizer, tissues, wipes and a covered bin.

We have an enhanced cleaning schedule in place for during the day. Classrooms will be wiped down at the end of the morning session and after lunch, if children have been eating there. Doors and regularly touched surfaces will be wiped down and shared spaces (e.g. intervention group work rooms, library) will also be cleaned after use.

Toilet areas will be cleaned more frequently through the day, including doors and taps.

Only essential items may be brought to school, as follows:

  1. 10 o’clock snack- use a cool bag / -box – no loose items or plastic bags
  2. clean water bottle to be taken home each day
  3. A blanket on a Monday and must be taken home on a Friday to be washed.

No rucksacks, large bags, pencil cases or toys will be allowed at the creches.

All items of clothing and belongings must be clearly labelled and in zip lock bags, as arranged previously with parents to be dropped off BEFORE the child comes for his/her FIRST day with our new Covid-19 protocols.

There are a couple of ways that you will be able to keep yourself and others safe:

Washing your hands regularly

You will wash your hands when you come into school, after breaks and before eating.

Using a tissue

If you cough or sneeze – ‘catch it, bin it, kill it’ 

Do not touch your face!

Do not touch others

Mask / Vizor-hats

Children 5 and younger do not have to wear masks or vizor-hats.  We do promote the idea of children wearing vizor-hats, but you as parent can decide what is best for your child.

Kiddies heaven and Covid-19

Covid-19 Information

We will also continue to have in place, procedures in the event of an outbreak of CV19 within our Kiddies Heaven community. The most important message remains – if your child is ill with symptoms of Covid-19, you must keep them at home, inform school and book a test. If a child becomes ill whilst in school, we will isolate them, contact you immediately to collect them and advise you to arrange testing.

In the event of a confirmed case of CV19, we will engage with track and trace, and seek further guidance from our local health protection team.

A robust and rigorous risk assessment has been carried out by the Dept. of Health and the Department of Social Development.  We have received are certificates from the Municipality, still waiting on our Certificates from the Development of Social Development.

 

The documents below can be viewed or downloaded by clicking on the links: