Letter informing parents about the closure of after school club

It's not a timeslot most parents are going to have available.

Absolutely. If parents are not working already, they are unlikely to want to work an hour or two after school when they could be at home with their own children. We have hugely struggled to staff our ASC because nobody wants to work the hours. All our TAs have children and want to go home.

That would depend on your local Childminding rate I know childminders that only charge if used and for the time used so pick up for an hour is £5 whilst most are a minimum of 2 hours.

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. It's all very well finding somewhere else, but how will the children GET there? If someone has to collect them to take them, surely it defeats the whole object of the thing. It makes me wonder what this other "wraparound" facility can be?

I would assume if the school have actively mentioned the other wraparound they must collect from the school.

Our afterschool club is £5.50 up til 4:15 and £11 up to 5:15.

Both pretty useless when you work traditional full time hours. We have to use an afterschool nanny for £15 an hour.

Are you using tax free to pay for the afterschool club, OP?

Why would parents volunteer to look after other people’s children when they could be at home with their own children?

Yeah that's exactly what I was thinking. It's all very well finding somewhere else, but how will the children GET there? If someone has to collect them to take them, surely it defeats the whole object of the thing. It makes me wonder what this other "wraparound" facility can be?

TBH I don't think relying on volunteers for something parents are this reliant on would be the best idea, as well as likely taking a while to sort a CRB check out. The reality is that if it's not a paid commitment, people (understandably) have a lower threshold for not coming than they do if they're being paid. That's not really compatible with a service that parents need to be able to rely on. Volunteers do brilliant work but they need to be supplementary rather than core, it's not sustainable otherwise.

Volunteering for this only works when it's well established and, imo, when the full staff is volunteering long term.

Our set up worked because it morphed from a very old (as in when I was a kid) playscheme run by some mums and grans, into one run by some volunteers who either worked with children already (I worked in schools for example) or were going down that road (we had a link with the local college and uni so had lots of trainee teachers and childcare staff). Add into that a couple of folks on career breaks and a retired head teacher and that was our core group.

Day-to-day one off parent helpers doesn't work. It's got to be people who have a reason for doing it.

The bigger issue than the volunteers having a lack of commitment is actually that parents very often have a massive lack of respect if something is run by volunteers. That's what closed ours in the end - volunteers got sick of parents treating them like crap and using "but they're just volunteers" as their excuse.

Ironically they now all have to pay the extortionate prices for the "professional" settings that they all said was better, but actually got a much poorer inspection rating than we had!

True. For those hours, parents are probably either working or, if not, often have DC in activities or who have additional needs and have to be at home to recover from school. It's not a timeslot most parents are going to have available.

Our after school club charges £9, 3 hours 3-6pm.
No choice to pay hourly, if the child leaves at 3.30pm or 4pm the charge is still £9.

Apparently it can be claimed back, but no one really knows how / nor how long that takes.

The maximum number of children ever has been 4.

2 members of staff.

It is not financially viable.

There should also be a member of the safeguarding team onsite for the duration as well.

You can't just ask for parent volunteers - it's not like on a school trip. They'd need to be DBS checked, likely first-aid trained etc. It's not free. Plus, the parents who benefit from after-school care are not going to be the same ones free to volunteer.

TBH I don't think relying on volunteers for something parents are this reliant on would be the best idea, as well as likely taking a while to sort a CRB check out. The reality is that if it's not a paid commitment, people (understandably) have a lower threshold for not coming than they do if they're being paid. That's not really compatible with a service that parents need to be able to rely on. Volunteers do brilliant work but they need to be supplementary rather than core, it's not sustainable otherwise.

with the current early years guidance then as lovely as the idea of parents volunteering to do it it wouldn’t work because they would need to be suitably trained and have paediatric first aid if they were going to have any early years pupils.

There’s probably more staff involved than the ones running the club. You have to pay someone to lock up the building, having the right number of first aiders on site. The rising costs of electricity and heat going into the winter.

That’s really disappointing but I am so shocked to see the prices here! My son’s school is £4 for care up until 4.30pm! I use it 4 days a week!

Doesn't remotely surprise me that it's not viable, even if one down the road is. I expect to see this happen more often as the 2020s cohort hit school age, since birth rates have dropped like a stone this decade. After schools clubs can be a bugger to staff as well.

But I get being annoyed at the lack of communication.

This happened to me, like you the afterschool provision was one of the reasons we chose the school over a different better located school. We were told just before the summer break, only weeks after booking school summer camps with the same provider. So not only did we lose afterschool for the following Sept I also had to take unpaid leave in the summer. The school promised they'd organise an alternative but it dragged on for months and never materialised.

What annoyed me most of all was the lack of communication and leaving parents in the dark. We moved schools the following year as it was just a pattern of mismanagement in general.

I think thd lack of notice with these things is poor.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t communicate issues within the school community either.
Why not say “we need 10 children to make staffing costs viable and we haven’t got enough”? See if parents make a choice to help thd school. Other suitable parents might volunteer rather than having all paid staff?

Oh that’s annoying op, with such little notice. However I’m guessing it’s just not viable anymore. Maybe ask the other parents what they’re going to do? Maybe there will be a demand for childminders now in the area.

Not really helpful to the OP but THIS is what the government needs to be funding.
Not the free breakfasts. Most children in breakfast club aren't there because they need free food but because their parents are off to work. Apparently most children have their breakfast before they leave the house - they don't need/want it at school.

If you had 2 staff for eight pupils, they'd need to be paying over £10 per hour each for it to be financially viable.

This happened to us a couple of years ago but the closure was immediate. School made a few suggestions one of which was Koru Kids. I made a profile, interviewed 5 people online. Did in person trials with two, both uni students. One was a clear favourite and is still working for me now. It is way more expensive than WA but there are advantages to having the child taken home from school, able to relax in their own environment. Nanny gives them supper, helps with homework etc. You're not racing to get to pick up at 1800 and you don't have to do dinner when you get in. It has been worth it.

This, there could have been a lot of Y6 last year, but they have now moved on and I expect many of the reception parents have decided their children have a long enough day and have made other arrangements. Only takes a small number to tip the balance, you need to have at least two workers, preferably three and even if they are on minimum wage three people working for two hours adds up.

Better than what we had- an email saying it’s stopping with no reason and no response to emails asking why.
school closes at 12:20 on a Friday and the alternative wraparound doesn’t operate on a Friday.

The only option is a nursery that offers care at a whopping £50 for 12-5 compared to the £2.50 an hour the school was charging.

when we went back they said numbers weren’t viable to keep it open. Like the OP part of the reason I chose the school was the wraparound care available.