To think that most school holiday clubs stay open for all the holidays?

[allagory]

Our holiday club which is based at the school is open during the school holidays just for the 3 days between Christmas and New Year. At Easter they are open for 4 days after Easter Monday. Over the summer they are open for the first 4 weeks only.

They have also asked us to fill in all the holidays we want until September 2012 and to send money now. If we cancel, you forfeit 7 of the 21 pounds a day you pay, all if it is 48 hours prior.

They say that there's no demand but I feel like they are deliberately creating no demand.

I also think that if they want to take lots of holiday at Christmas and Easter, they probably shouldn't take a job in a school holiday club. AIBU? What do your school holiday clubs do?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Ours offered breakfast and after-school club for which they needed bookings ahead of each term but the invoices were sent in arrears. For holiday periods you had to pay in advance. Christmas they offered a limited service since most families take time off and there was very little demand. The Easter holiday and half terms they covered in full. They only covered 4 out of the six weeks of the summer vac, so that's when we would take our family holidays. The biggest inconvenience was when they didn't cover inset days, but we got around that in other ways.

[Groovee]

Our school one only covers Easter, February and October weeks. Because the staff work term time after school and need some time for their own holidays.

[cookcleanerchaufferetc]

We don't get any holiday clubs provided by the school ......

[hobnobsaremyfavourite]

Schools have to have some time in the holidays for buildings maintenance, teachers to set up for the new term, tidying up etc so generally will only allow the building to be used for certain periods of the holiday.

[TastyMuffins]

Ours is separate to school and doesn't cover Christmas holidays but does the rest although sometimes their holiday periods start or end a day or two short of school's because they take children from several schools. Can also be used by children from any school. No need to book, it's PAYG. Do you have other places you can use?

[troisgarcons]

£21 a day? if only - ours charges £50 and tells us 'we should be grateful, it's their holiday time too'

[allagory]

I have an elaborate system of favours from and for friends, grandparents, other holiday clubs. It's a nightmare. My problem is they offer a service but it's patchy.

£50 per child per a day must be a very superior club. I think I'll give up my job and start a holiday club. I think you could do OK for just working 13 weeks a year at that rate.

I did pay 35 for another holiday club this half term but that included a trip to the zoo.

[MsHighwater]

£50 per day! Blimey. Gold plated, at least, at that price.

Ours (which is not run by school but by an independent body with charitable status) charges £18/day for holiday cover and covers all of summer and easter hols. I presume it covers October, too, but not certain of that. Certainly not open Christmas, at all.

[allagory]

I do agree 2 weeks off in summer is fair enough.

But Xmas is just a joke. Nobody is going to use that club between Xmas and New Year. They'll get paid anyway, so they don't care.

[oldsilverbullet]

I used to run all the school holidays except for Christmas. There wasn't really any uptake for that time of year, couldn't get the staff anyway and also we couldn't use the school grounds as the caretakers wanted a holiday and the local church hall was a tad busy at that time of the year

And we only tended to get paid for hours worked!!!