What parents need to know about Lockdown 3

On Monday 4th January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a press conference confirming we were going back into lockdown in England at midnight.

England began another national lockdown from January 5th 2021. It means all schools close immediately and are now to use remote learning and homeschooling. This makes this lockdown a much harder for parents than the second lockdown in November. This lockdown was expected to go on until mid-February but it’s more likely it’ll be into March.

Although schools are included in this lockdown Nurseries are exempt.

Read our post about homeschooling here.

Summary of the lockdown rules for parents

Here is a summary of the rules for us parents during lockdown 3:

• We can leave home to meet our support/ childcare bubble, both of these are still allowed during this lockdown – This will be a massive relief for many parents
• Schools are closed – except for the children of key workers and vulnerable children – but nurseries remain open to help keyworkers continue to go work
• Playgrounds are actually remaining open, and exercise outside is once again limited to just once a day (this is not time-limited). Parents should stick to their local area
• Children’s sports are cancelled
• Outdoor exercise can be done with your bubble or one person can go for exercise with one person from another household (Meaning 2 people in total)
• Thankfully the child or children of separated or divorced parents can still move between the two houses of their parents
• A-levels and GCSEs will not go ahead as planned, the government have yet to release exact detail of this.
• Importantly school meal vouchers will continue

Further Lockdown rules

We’re all being asked to stay at home from the 5th January and only leaving home for specific reasons, and follow other rules these are:

• Only go to work if you absolutely can’t work from home
• To go shopping for food. Remember to keep to one person where possible
• Foreign travel is banned
• Police can fine rule breakers
• All restaurants are closed, obviously, but can do click-and-collect and deliveries of food, but they can’t sell alcohol.
• GP surgeries, Dentists and Opticians will remain open and you can of go for medical appointments where planned or needed.
• Weddings can take place in limited circumstances
• Outdoor sports venues to be closed

Further details are expected over the next few days, and the plan (at the moment) is to return to the Tier system at the end of this lockdown.

More about Lockdown 3

Before Christmas, a new coronavirus variant of was discovered to be more infectious and has been responsible for the rise in cases. Pressure has mounted on the government to go into lockdown, to include the closure of schools,

Nicola Sturgeon had announced that the majority of Scotland’s schools will be closed for at least a month-long lockdown just hours before Boris Johnson’s announcement.

In Wales, Mark Drakeford ( The First Minister) had announced Level 4 restrictions (essentially lockdown). These have been in place since 20th December. He has said this is likely to remain in place for some time.

This lockdown – which was announced after some children had already been back in classrooms for just one day and Boris Johnson on the Andrew Marr show on Sunday stated there was ‘no doubt’ in his mind that schools were safe – has received a mixed response from parents.

Parents are of course stuck between a rock and a hard place with this lockdown with wanting to do their bit to stop the spread of the Coronavirus and having to do another stretch of homeschooling while trying to work.

You can keep further up to date with the Government’s Coronavirus advice and response here.