Wrap around care for those who don't work??

I know what you’re saying and as a working parent it grinds my gears too - we only qualify for 15 free nursery hours for example whereas if neither of us worked we’d get 30. But I try and remember it’s provided for the children not the parents, we know that early education and provision as you describe improves outcomes for children from the poorest households, and I can’t complain about that. If it improves kids’ lives then I’m in agreement.

But hopefully it’ll create a generation of children who are better able to focus at school, so they’re successful at school and work and won’t continue the cycle with their children. The only way to break the cycle is to invest more in the current school-age generation.

I am a working parent and I paid for breakfast and after school club and I am really pleased about this change.

This helps disadvantaged children, it can help children with neuro diversity transition into the day, it could give young carers respite from their caring role and guess what, even 'normal families need suport sometimes and this can help.

There maybe some parents who use it, but don't need it, but in this time so many families can topple into crisis, either physically, or mental health wise, or financially quickly and this is a safety net.

In terms if workforce planning, schools have not changed significantly since I have been in school. If school offer 'full day' TA contracts, it may make the role more appealing to a wider range of applicants.

Case by case does work. It means those who need it the most don’t get it because they are too embarrassed to ask for it.

It’s not taking away from working families, it’s making sure every child gets the best start possible even when the odds are stacked against them. Sadly the world isn’t a level playing field and if a free breakfast or after school club goes just a tiny way to balance that then it’s worth it.

Threshold for FsM is 7k. Very few parents of children on FsM work.

It’s the poverty of the working for many.

Plus Lots of loopholes to access FsM and can be divorced/separated and in large house receiving high amounts of child maintenance and still claim FsM as CM not classed as a wage.

Better give up your job and do what she's doing then, before you burst an artery 🤷‍♂️

Thanks @MurdoMunro We did get tax credits for a long time, and it really helped keep us afloat (no big TV and none of us has been abroad since DS was born almost 15 years ago). For all of nursery (where my wage plus tax credits paid the nursery bills and enabled me to keep my job), and all the way through primary when I used paid for holiday clubs and breakfast club all year - again this meant I was able to keep working despite being disabled myself (PIP refused on spurious grounds but I was too ill to fight it at tribunal level - again something that happens a lot). If DS was at primary school now this policy would have been a lifeline for me and enabled me to keep working. Surely the aim of the game?

Instead of feeling pissed off that people are getting benefits unfairly, maybe some posters need to think bigger picture. Many, many people who should be getting support via benefits are not. Policies like this are aimed at helping children in a practical and direct way first and foremost.

I can only hope the government turns its attentions to the SEND crisis. Have last week spent 1k on solicitor letter to LA to try to enforce provision for 2 speech disorders and basic literacy lessons. I could actually cry, thinking how much 1k means to us. Sadly, after 2 years of battling we have no choice left but to do this.
I don't think I have any tears left now just a rather bleak and determined look in my eye.

Anyone who doesn't have a child with SEND, god bless your heart, be glad you don't know what I know.

Breakfast clubs are good coz they ensure kids get a good breakfast before they start the day. So many children don’t eat breakfast and it really does impact their ability to focus and learn.

Rubbish parents are rubbish parents, and they will be regardless of what wrap-a-round care they use for their kids.

Well it’s almost as if expecting most parents to start work at exactly the same time that school starts isn’t really a workable system.

Why are social services not providing breakfast clubs for such children? Why should it fall on the burden of schools?

So where's the dad? Because clearly there's also a brother or bil to blame here too, Or is it the usual case of it's all the woman's fault?

I also am baffled as to how a parent can't manage to feed their child breakfast every morning.
What a sad state of affairs.

Off the top of my head, a parent with a chronic debilitating disease or severe mental health problems or up to their neck in debt?

Yes working parents get it too, BUT if you are working you pay £30 per week per child for breakfast club. The unemployed pay nothing. I need help in getting up in the morning due to swollen joints and other problems and the carer that helps me starts work at 8am so relies on breakfast club and pays for it. Her next door unemployed neighbour has 5 children at the same school and doesn't pay a penny.

I'm with you. Call me a cynic but I think the universal breakfast club idea is really just a way to get kids into school on time to reduce low level of attendance or lateness. Not to mention covering up woefully inadequate social services resourcing. And it completely erodes the idea that school should not be seen as childcare.

Jeez
I paid for breakfast club and asc for my 3 over a 20 year period. For my youngest especially it added enormously to her world.
I paid for every scrap of school holiday cover.
If it is to be funded for all, bloody fantastic. If children who get free school meals also get some fun activities to look forward to in the school holidays, double fantastic.
It's brilliant that parents get a hand now towards childcare costs at a younger age, better maternity deals and paternity pay. Literally cannot imagine how or why anyone with an ounce of sense would see this as a problem

My ‘wanking’ comment was not gender specific and could be read as metaphorical if I wanted to be a smartarse. For note, I don’t mean to be a smart arse, am just a bit pissed off and should probably have my tea or something.

It’s a shame the dad isn’t stepping up, then the kids wouldn’t need to use the wraparound care.

I guess it’s always the mother’s fault.

It's not to help the parents, it's to support the children who are most at need.

Look at it this way, your children are incredibly lucky to have a hardworking, caring mum who meets their needs. Some others are in families that are unable or unwilling to meet their needs.

Yes, adequate childcare should be available to working parents. But that shouldn't be at the expense of children who need wraparound care for other reasons.

Hello, I'd just like to join the conversation as someone who gets benefits and is going on a holiday abroad in February.

Hi!

I do have a large tv (actually I have two) but I don't have a goat. I think my cats would object.

You say your children possibly have adhd op. Can I ask, do they have additional support in school? One to ones, teachers having to spend more time making sure your children have the same opportunities to achieve in the classroom as others? Which of course, should be the case. But when you have children with additional needs, it means they may have support that other children are then missing out on. And it’s absolutely not the SEN children’s fault, but it is the same argument you’re making - children from poorer or chaotic families can’t help the background they come from, but it doesn’t mean that the support in the morning and after school shouldn’t be available to them because their parents don’t work. The education system needs to be available to each student as an individual, not as a grouping based on socioeconomic value.

You’re not the only one who has taken this approach and I’m sorry to hear it. You should be getting what you deserve and need and my heart goes out to everyone locked in the SEND merry go round. I send you all my best.

And noted. Tax credits wrapped up in Universal Credit. I will remember that the next time I see a ‘UC feckless freeloader’ comment.

Tedious it is!!. Don't know if it's a man posting though. Us women can be equally 😏🤔

Oh come on, there are plenty of kids whose parents will seize on the opportunity to drop their child off earlier than they need to so they can sit and have a coffee in peace before going to work. I work in a school and there has definitely been a change in culture amongst the parents the past few years and I don't know why it is. The type of parent who, when you call them to tell them their child has got diarrhoea so badly they've had to be cleaned up by a poor TA 3 times, will tell you "Well, the thing is I'm still at work. Is it ok if I get there in 2 hours?" Er, no, it fucking isn't. Your child is really unwell and is potentially infecting all the other children. Come and parent him!

I also doubt it’s a lot. A quick calculation says that minimum wage about 10 hours a week would meet that threshold. Most kids on FSM have no earnt income in the house. Although I personally think FSM should cover a higher income that it currently does!

It's the state taking responsibility to care for all children at primary level.

I do wonder how those children feel when they get to secondary school are hungry, and neglected. Their lives haven't miraculously improved in one term.