81.3% of parents will NOT send their children back to school if they reopen in June

There are still hundreds of tragic deaths from Coronavirus in England every day but the government have stepped up plans to kick-start the economy and get the country back up and running.

The Department for Education has asked schools and nurseries to prepare to reopen from 1st June. Primary schools have been told that they would be the first schools to reopen to welcome back children from reception, Year 1 and Year 6, whilst nurseries and childminders have been told to welcome back all children.

Many parents are finding life tough - having to work from home and supervise their children with work that schools may have sent home. Parents who can't work from home are in many cases being pressured to return to work and are many are faced with needing to find childcare. Grandparents aren't allowed to care for their grandchildren, nurseries are closed and childminders can only currently care for key worker children or take on the children from just one household.  Over the last week we have seen unprecedented demand for childcare on our platform with hundreds of thousands of non-key-worker parents searching for childminders and nannies.

You would think that most parents couldn't wait for things to return to normal and were ready to send their children back to school, so we decided to ask our community how they felt.

We asked parents 'If your child's school or childcare setting was open and available to you from 1st June, would you send your child back?' and 20,805 responded.
 

The results are staggering. 81.3% of parents said 'No' with just 18.7% of parents answering 'Yes'.

37.9% of parents who answered 'No' said they were 'finding it hard to get work done themselves with the children at home but keeping them at home was the safest thing to do'.
 

So, when should children return to school? Of the parents who answered 'No', 62% ' said that they didn't think it would be safe for their children to return to school until September, 16.3% said they won't send their children back to school until their is a Covid-19 vaccine and 12% don't think it will be safe for children to go back to school until January 2021.

For parents who answered 'Yes', 43.2% felt children should already be back at school as they are missing out on their education. 41.4% say it is safe for children to return to school now and 22.2% said 'the sooner they go back the better'.

 

Richard Conway, CEO & Founder of Childcare.co.uk said:

“Since the UK Government’s announcement to reopen primary schools and childcare settings in England from the beginning of next month our community of parents and childcare providers have been very vocal about the decision.

“It was extremely interesting to find out that just how many parents don’t believe it will be safe for their children to return on 1st June - both to school and other childcare settings. This is by no means a reflection of the quality of care their children will have, but rather the circumstances of the return and the seemingly impossible task of keeping children safe from something like COVID-19. This time isn’t easy for any parent, and we must remember that not all families will be able to keep their children home even if they want to because they need to get back to work. The government should listen to parents, many of whom are faced with a near-impossible task, and support teachers and childcare providers for a safe and proper return.”