Letter informing parents about the closure of after school club

How does your child get to the other setting down the road? I assume you can't take them as you're at work.
Sounds like a child minder will be better option.

@KindLemur you seem unhinged

Oh gosh, the school where I used to work is full every single day for breakfast and after school club, that said it is mainly the younger years - reception, year 1 & 2. You certainly wouldn’t be able to flexibly book spaces and it’s on a first come basis, booked one month ahead. If you don’t book this way, I’d forget you’d likely not get the space.

Our after school club remains oversubscribed (and runs a waiting list for all the days except Fridays). They are not flexible at all- no casual booking and if you want to drop days you have to go on waiting list again to get them back. It’s pricey at £16.50 for after school until 6pm. Although I don’t love any of this about it, this thread is making me think all this is a good thing to ensure it’s sustainable!

I work in finance in a MAT and spent some time looking at our 7 schools who don’t have after school club to see if it was viable. Two of them have closed their clubs in the last few years. At a cost of £8 per day we needed 19 children every day to break even. We had a max of 8 interested and most days it was between 4 and 6. It’s just not financially viable. A lot depends on the area of the school. We have 30 primary schools in our MAT so 23 run successful clubs and 7 just don’t have the interest.

But one teacher has 30 kids for most of the day. And actually had to teach them stuff. One member of staff can perfectly well handle 19 children playing board games, colouring and doing simple crafts in the exact same space for a short period of time.

This seems to be snowballing - falling provision I mean. Dss breakfast club closed couple of weeks into term leaving some parents high and dry.

We have two staff members running the club but have a safeguarding lead and the caretaker both on site for the duration just not in the club (but easily shoutable)

In a school chances are there will be staff members still working somewhere!

Wow so only the highly qualified WFH and only the lowly need to go in....nice. Hey doc why didn't you do better at school then you could operate from home whilst caring for your kids?

So if one child is injured like a broken bone or has an Asthma attack etc. that leaves one staff member and 19 kids while the other deals with the emergency, if two are hurt it's worse. That doesn't sound great normally there are other staff to call on in school hours.

No, of course it isn't. Why on earth would you generalise that all DC are better off spending more time in a busy, noisy school environment than chilling at home? It really shouldn't be news that a lot of kids need to decompress when school finishes and wouldn't cope well with another couple of hours at the end of the day. Or just need a rest between school and whatever evening activity they have that might actually be more beneficial than hanging around with kids they've not chosen and doing colouring for a couple of hours, which is what some ASC provision looks like.

Why did you quote me?

Even if you can work from home (I do hybrid) the key is WORK, not doing the school run then having the kids home with you. Surely you are either being terrible at your job or ignoring the children after work. An afterschool club where they do activities is surely preferable to that?

I was waiting for someone to say this. So many people I know pull this stunt and I have no idea how they get away with it….

My DDs primary did have free breakfast club. We were pressurised to use it as it was unpopular.
Problem was most parents didn’t work so for them it meant getting up earlier. It only opened at 8.15am which was zero help if you had a job you needed to get to. DD was coeliac and they didn’t actually cater for her properly anyway.

We run with two and the goodwill of other school staff to step in if needed!

Quite a few places round here run with just 2 staff. Means they have to close if one is ill (and more often than ideal they have to work even when they should be at home ill).

It's a shame costs have meant changes to practise - work we ran our playscheme with breakfast club and asc it was seen as poor practise in an inspection to run with two staff as if anything happens to one of your adults the children are virtually unsupervised while the remaining adult deals with the issue. Whereas it's now very normal in many settings.

Nice try, but it couldn't be more obvious that you're just jealous and bitter. It isn't our fault you don't have the skills to get a WFH job.

But you surely have to employ at least 3 staff. Otherwise the club has to close every time 1 of the 2 leaves, is sick, needs training etc?

You don’t - mine has 2 adults for around 20 children

The only two schools round here who've been able to take up the free breakfast are ones that already only charged 50p per child (there's a business man locally who funded it mostly).

a place in the club for the worker's DC only works if they happen to attend the same school.

Exactly!

Yes, it just doesn't sound particularly viable to me. No doubt it'll be fine in some schools and areas, but not nationally.

Schools already struggle to staff themselves during the day, and these hours are likely to be even less attractive. A lot of people either don't want or can't logistically manage jobs requiring them to be at work before 8. It can make childcare and sometimes public transport more complex, for those relying on them, and a place in the club for the worker's DC only works if they happen to attend the same school.

I think once these free breakfast clubs are all rolled out they’ll be an influx If it’s free

The only schools I know of who signed up as early adopters of the 'free' breakfast club scheme have pulled out! It was a shambles-the government barely funded toast and a drink for each child, let alone staffing. My school currently has a great breakfast club (despite after school club being about to close) which covers its costs and is well attended. If we had to offer it free, it would fold.

'Free' breakfast clubs will become the same as 'free' childcare for 30 hours, and 'free' nhs dentistry. Sounds great on paper but if you can't find somewhere locally to offer it, it's not going to benefit you at all.

Ours runs four days a week, but only until 430. They have outside providers who do a specific activity, so art club on a Monday, football each Tuesday etc. It’s £10-11 a day.