Lack of extra-curricular activities at school

Site staff need to open and close up. They need paying and have set working hours.

Who lets them in ? Who locks up ? Who checked their dbs and risk assessments ?
Hiring a hall privately at weekends does not count and neither does a private club but an extension of the school day is different.

I'm not sure that's true. We have an external karate club at our school that runs without any school staff present. And the hall is available for parties at the weekend; again no staff would be around for that.

if you have after school clubs, fantastic. You are incredibly lucky. I have run them in the past, voluntarily, at huge personal sacrifice. it isn't just that hour, it is the hour of planning, the booking the rooms, the admin, the RA, the other staff that need to be contactable, etc etc etc.

It is an incredible gift from a member of the teaching staff to the students. No one has any entitlement to it. There is a ridiculous attitude of entitlement on this thread - which makes staff far less likely to volunteer for these things.

The OP seems mostly concerned with her transport arrangements, rather than enrichment for her kid anyway.

it all happens by magic! No teacher has to spend any time on it at all! never mind an hour a week, which the Op seems to think we all have spare, somewhere

Who sends out the letters ?
who collects the money ?
who does the risk assessment ?
who organises the dbs ?

How about you research some providers op, do the costings and suggest to school

I think this just works differently in different schools.

At my sons' school this just isn't an issue. There are no staff being asked to work additional hours for extra curriculars.

There is always a designated safeguarding lead on site when the site is open for children which is between 7:30 am and 6:30pm for wraparound.

Obviously any clubs are well within those hours so no one extra needs to stay.

The office is open till 5pm as standard so any admin issues for the club staff are dealt with by them.

It does take a bit of admin time to organise the clubs and keep track of who is going to what but the club organisers pay rent and that more than covers that.

I am a school governor so I have all the relevant facts.

Having run after school clubs until 4pm or so as an external provider it really isn’t an issue. I ran them by myself or with a colleague, obvs with a DBS. Of course leaving at 4pm plenty of others were still in the building in case of emergency.

But you’re still expecting staff to stay behind ?

There's no reason external providers can't come in to offer various activities. No cost to staff whatsoever.

there might be a reason and in this context I’d say it’s perfectly reasonable to ask. You might be able to persuade private providers to come and do some kind of taster session. School doesn’t have to provide anything other than a room.

I used to run after school activities in schools as a business. Actually very difficult to make it profitable unless you charge a lot eg. £6+ per hour. And unless the school is large and in a well to do area, you won’t get enough take up.

teachers do after school activities once a week at ours, from what I can tell it’s on an entirely voluntary basis so not realistic to offer more.

And what if staff are not free after school. I do interventions then, Every day. (when there is no staff meeting) Voluntarily. So I am not available for supervising outside providers coming on site to run after school clubs.

so for the staff, getting home is pushed back by an hour - you don't seem to have any idea what that means. I am on the premises by 6.45 in my current school. In my previous school it was an hour before that. I am often still on the premises 2 hours after school finishes. And you think I should be volunteering to push that back by a further hour?

Anyone else here from Scotland or elsewhere?

My eldest is in primary one Scotland, I don't know of any clubs ran in a school locally. Certainly not afterwards. There is very occasionally a trial session for a club within school time with info given to parents. But any extra curricular is up to us, in this area.

Is that the same elsewhere here?

And also if the school has a wraparound offer which you said it did, some staff are on site anyway.

At my son's school - the externally run clubs don't require any additional school staff above and beyond those that are on site because of the wraparound anyway

There would be some admin that the school would have to do in order to facilitate after school activities. Perhaps they don't have the resources for this and maybe the school admin team are so stretched that extra curricular activities are not deemed a priority. Perhaps the school have asked parents about extra curricular activities in the past and parents haven't been interested perhaps because of the costs involved?
The only way you'll find our OP is by asking the school yourself if you want to do that. I would be gentle in my approach with this though as you have said yourself you are aware of the pressure teaching staff are under as your DH is a HT. I'm actually surprised that you are being so critical of your child's school (website, activities etc) when you have a good idea of the demands on schools or perhaps your DH works in an independent? I'd be grateful and thankful that my child loves it and is doing well and I'd let them crack on with it!

But school staff still need to stay when outside providers are in. We can’t just walk away when they’re on school premises

My kids’ primary school used to do eg cooking after school until 1630 but you then had to transfer to the ASC for the usual 1800 pick up. So we had to pay for both on that day. If money had been tight, we would have just done ASC as that was the one that meant we could work and commute.

A possible reason, OP?

I was speaking generally, as your post indicated and apologies if you’ve mis understood.
That your own children are provided for us great but you posted from the viewpoint of your class status on the PTA.

Apologies if you didn’t understand but my points still stand.