Daily DfE Update - 25th March 2020

Please find below the latest daily email update from the DfE for your information.

 

GOV.UK
     
 
 
Department for Education
 
 
 

This is your daily email to keep you updated on the government’s response to COVID-19 (coronavirus).

Staying at home guidance

Yesterday, the Prime Minister addressed the nation on coronavirus (COVID-19) and asked people to stay at home, except for very limited purposes.

There is no change in guidance for education settings, which remain closed except for the children of critical workers and vulnerable children. We continue to ask that parents keep their children at home, wherever possible.

The full stay at home guidance is available at:

Guidance for early years and childcare providers

We have published new guidance for Ofsted-registered childcare providers about childcare provision following the outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19):

Guidance for further education providers on maintaining education and skills training provision

We have published new guidance which explains what further education providers need to do during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak to maintain provision:

Guidance for apprentices, employers, training providers and assessment organisations

We have published new guidance which outlines the changes that we are making to the apprenticeship programme during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak:

Employer support in response to coronavirus (COVID-19)

The government has published a full range of support measures for UK employers and employees:

The information outlines how to access the support that has been made available, who is eligible, when the schemes open and how to apply.

Changes to attendance registers and daily online return to DfE

Thank you to all education settings that submitted their status and attendance information to the online form yesterday. For those settings that need more information on how to do this, we have developed a short tutorial video to guide you through the process:

The short tutorial video can be found at:

The online form can be found at:

Collection of guidance for educational settings on GOV.​UK

All of the Department for Education’s coronavirus guidance for educational settings can now be found in one place on GOV.​UK:

Handwashing advice

The most important thing individuals can do to protect themselves is to wash their hands more often, for at least 20 seconds, with soap and water. Public Health England recommends that in addition to handwashing before eating, and after coughing and sneezing, everyone should also wash hands after using toilets and travelling on public transport.

The latest guidance and video on hand washing can be found here:

Department for Education coronavirus helpline

The Department for Education coronavirus helpline is available to answer questions about COVID-19 relating to education and children’s social care. Staff, parents and young people can contact this helpline as follows:

Phone: 0800 046 8687
Opening hours: 8am to 6pm (Monday to Friday), 10am to 4pm (Saturday to Sunday)

Please note, we are currently experiencing high volumes of calls. We appreciate your patience at this time and apologise for any wait that you may experience. To ensure that we answer your calls as quickly as possible, we have now extended our opening hours to cover weekends and are increasing the number of call handlers available to answer your calls.

If you work in a school, please have your unique reference number (URN or UKPRN) available when calling the hotline.