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

These are my thoughts. Even without working in a school, it's obvious that it's going to be logistically very difficult to implement if lots of parents take it up.

There are more than 350 children in my DC's school and lunches are done on a rolling basis over an hour and half. As you say, if even half take it up, where on earth are they going to put them?

On a previous thread, someone suggested the classrooms, but surely that's impractical with transporting the food, having the mess in the classroom and clearing it away and surely teachers use them to prepare before the children arrive??

My child is in primary school.
Breakfast club is free for everyone but they've limited it to only 40 spaces and there's 360 pupils.

Our school has a free breakfast club for everyone, its in quite a disadvantaged area but after school club is for working parents only

I think you need to stop worrying about your SIL or you'll end up very bitter indeed (I fear it may be too late).

If working parents are able to benefit from these resources too, I don't see a problem. After all the true beneficiaries here are the children.

DD's secondary school offers free breakfast (porridge or toast) with tea for everyone who wants it.

The teachers realised how many children come without food and how it affects the teaching.

They pay the food and staff out of the normal budget.

And we are a fairly affluent, leavy London suburb.

Is your SIL a lone parent?

If so, she’ll be subject to the household benefit cap, which means (if she lives outside London) the maximum she’ll be entitled to in benefits for all her living costs for her and her six children (rent, utilities, Wi-Fi, food, clothes, shoes, household items, birthdays, Xmas etc) is £423.46 a week or £1,835 a month, including child benefit.

Average private rents are £1,300 a month.

I’m struggling to understand how she covers all her costs, let alone affords a foreign holiday every year.

Nope. I love working with our needy families. You can see the difference you make. But it's very frustrating when you see some of our parents working their socks off in low paid jobs not entitled to anything and then the next parent comes in who knows how to game the system, and is basically one of life's "takers", giving nothing back. The system is wrong. If I knew I didn't need those FSM holiday vouchers anymore, I would either tell the school to please spend the money on something for children who DID need it, or I would take the vouchers, buy the stuff myself and donate it back to the school or to a food bank.

No she gets DLA because it has been proven (through a very difficult system) that she has needs above those of her peers.

you don’t get DLA based on diagnosis, it’s based on needs.

But- it's making working parents lives even harder

How in God's name is your children's school offering wraparound care for all children making the lives of working parents even harder?

💔

Sadly in lots of cases it will be to give the kids a break from their abusive parents and horrible home lives.

Yes good point - my child's best friend at school, whose parents don't work and are on benefits, gets breakfast club, free school meals, free after school clubs, free school holiday clubs.food vouchers during holidays. I'm pleased for her because she is from a difficult home life, a very chaotic life, and she shouldn't be punished because of this, so good that she gets to do stuff she otherwise wouldn't.

The one thing that does piss me off, and I can't help it, is that her mum recently paid money (!) to have her privately diagnosed with ADHD. Her mum now gets 400 pound a month on top of her benefits because her daughter now gets Disability Living Allowance. 400 a month ?!!? For having an ADHD diagnosis??
She spends most of her time round here! So yeah, good for the daughter but who knew about the 400...just a piss take that.

It is often far more expensive to do these things on a case by case basis, so while I don’t support welfare for those who don’t need it, I do support running programs that help children who need it effectively and efficiently, and not letting ideology make them less effective and more expensive. If effective and efficient means a blanket breakfast club approach, then I’m for it. I believe you are 1000% for that too, based on your previous posts.

Perhaps look up the statistics for food bank use amongst families and you might understand why they want to give out breakfast to children!

I don't know when you were last in schools but in the past 3 years things have changed a lot. Could you explain what you think a full day TA contract would look like?

I think in cases where those entitled to free care are prioritised does take it away from working parents as they miss out on the opportunity when they actually need it the most to be able to work - as several posters have pointed out

Your DH obviously takes home more than £80k if you don’t receive child benefit.

At this stage it just seems like you’re playing troll bingo.

Benefit scrounger check
6 kids check
spending all the benefit money on fags a cruises check
woke check
champagne socialists check

Ding ding ding full house.

And even then it's tough shit

This!! I hate these kind of threads . You don't know people's circumstances, stop judging. A parent at my kids school lost her husband suddenly ,which left her in a really difficult financial situation. She worked, but had to put her kids in breakfast club. I could never begrudge a child that.

She probably means it’s the people who work that earn just too much to receive any benefits but not enough to live comfortably. The ones stuck in the middle who neither reap a lot of reward for the work they do, or receive a substantial amount for doing nothing. When I say ‘substantial’ I mean in terms of not having to work for it - money for doing nothing

Think it's been asked a few times before , but im going to ask again before I head to bed , but where in all this is the children's other parent?

Reasons why children may be in wraparound care when their parents aren't working:

• the house has no heating and the children need warmth
• the family are living in poverty and it means they get breakfast
• their parents may have health issues - mental or physical - and they can ensure their children are able to be themselves and not having to be carers
• parents have children at different schools and can't be in more than one place at once
• the child may have a sibling who needs more care and they are spending time with their friends rather than having to compromise on their needs
• the parent may have difficulty coping and it's better for the children to be out if a stressful environment for longer
• the parent may be attending the job centre at a time given to them to attend rather than the parent being able to choose it - every fortnight!
• the parent may have other caring responsibilities
• the child may benefit from a less structured time to make and develop friendships.

All of these reasons are true for children in our Trust to attend wraparound. Those families you class as 'unworthy' may have lots of good reasons to use it.

I think the important thing to remember is that, regardless of whether you agree with some people's lifestyles, it is never the child's choice.

As a society, we never break the cycle of loss of opportunity unless we support children to be emotionally intelligent enough to realise their potential.

This is a threshold created by the last Tory government to stop people qualifying for fee school meals. you get barely any universal credit unless you work a minimum number of hours a week that would put you over 7k a year so they effectively reduced the number of children who qualified overnight even thought the overall household income didn’t change. Thus you have families where the older children qualify for FSM but the younger ones don’t.

Millions of children in receipt of FSM do so because of older thresholds and the fact you qualify for 6 years or automatically if you transition from primary into secondary during those 6 years.

Unless she's taking up places that your kids could use and you're being denied a place then it's not really your business