Shocked at wraparound care price

[moneyQuerying]

Have been helping a crowd with some issues and we’ve been looking at various things - one thing that came up was the cost of wraparound care ! £80 per week per child !
Is that average?
Are childminders generally cheaper ?

We pay around £300 a month for 3 days of after school club for two DC.

At one point our childcare bill was £1300 a month and eldest DC is off to secondary school in Sept so the bill will go down.

I say frequently to the staff at the club that if it wasn't for them I wouldn't be able to work as lack of CM in our area. Not all schools offer wraparound care though.

I'm guessing she's a woman? Easier if she just stays home

Its £90 a week at my school for before & after school club but they're flippin amazing so I dont mind.

Yep £100 a week here for 7.45-5.30. I couldn’t justify it so had to reduce my hours in the end, they are great though!

When people I know say they're looking forward to their kids starting school and no more childcare, I think, have you thought about this?

£20 per day here per child (£5 for breakfast club and £15 for after school)

Bluewavescrashing me too.

I've had friends get all excited about their 3yo getting in to school nursery before I was the kill joy who asked how they were covering before and after school and holidays. Some then decided to keep there's at a private nursery and admitted they simply hadn't thought about it. The 2 that have used the school nursery find it really stressful- either sing grandparents for informal care and all the issues that brings or having to ensure they book on after school clubs and holiday clubs.

I've also found that most wrap around and holiday care requires you to book in advance and my work doesn't always work like that so I'd be paying for provision I didn't need or risk not having provision I did need. Another reason we've chosen the school we have - if they are in the building without a before 8.50 then it's automatically breakfast club and if you fail to pick them up before 4pm (school finishes at 3.50) then they automatically go to after school club. No booking on, just an ad-hoc service.

*theirs.

Breakfast club is free, after school is £5 per child from end of school to 5:30.

the kind of job (capable of a few) I can do are so low paid, but childcare would take the whole lot, I have no choice to SAHM

Obviously everyone wants the best quality childcare for their children, but you can't get blood out of a stone.

So what is your solution? We already have childcare schemes to help with costs, are we supposed to keep lowering costs so school age childcare remains a poorly qualified minimum wage job?

PP was right, we shouldn’t complain about the cost of childcare. We should be paying decent money to those who look after our children. If people can’t afford it, then perhaps more help should be given to them, or they might need to find a different solution, but the cost shouldn’t be in question.

Obviously this only applies to those in certain jobs, but when children are small it can be worth considering self-employment or contracting.

Yes, I don't get paid holidays nor sick but if you've got more than one child and limited childcare it can be worth it as there's less childcare costs and skills are still fresh for going back into employment.

I am working again tonight after children settle (boo) but I did picks ups today (yey).

I actually run a wrap-around childcare business. We charge £90 from 7.30am to 6pm, so work out at £4.50 per hour, per child. Just done a very rough calculation of where that money goes. £2 is on staff (to pay for qualified staff in Ofsted ratios). £1.20 is rent of the premises (there is no one school site provision, the school doesn't have the room). We provide full breakfast and tea, and that costs approx 50p of the £4.50. The rest of the money (80p) goes on things like insurance/dbs checks/Ofsted registration costs/staff training (we are all paediatric first aid trained, as well as food safety quals and other training like safeguarding), phones, printing, resources. I promise I'm not rolling in money.

The wrap-around that schools offer directly can be much cheaper, because they aren't paying rent or sometimes using teachers who don't get paid extra. Training/dbs/insurance etc comes out of school budget.

Mine is £80 a week. Wasn't so bad until I had two of them there. Still cheaper than nursery!

This is why so many women can’t afford to go back to work.

OP I’m assuming that you haven’t put a child through nursery?

And having said that I make my living out of wrap-around care (I didn't always, I used to be a teacher but the lack of local wrap-around care meant I had to quit), I do think childcare is far too expensive in this country. As a whole, the cost of (privately provided) childcare is prohibitive to a lot of women (it's usually women) to work full time, and the country is wasting their skills and talent. If there was sufficient quality childcare in my area, I'd still be a maths teacher.

Yet I can't squeeze my costs any lower. Even if Ofsted allowed it, I wouldn't want to put young children's welfare at stake by reducing ratios, cutting corners with qualifications or whatever. I firmly believe other countries have it right. Properly funded subsidised childcare would bring many women back into the labour market and there would be a net gain for the countries balance sheet.

So what is your solution? We already have childcare schemes to help with costs, are we supposed to keep lowering costs so school age childcare remains a poorly qualified minimum wage job?

I’m not suggesting I have a solution. I’m just saying it’s not hard to understand why people complain about it, if it’s a struggle.

I’m extremely lucky in that I a) have a very understanding and flexible employer who has allowed me to work part time which allows me to do pick up 3 days a week and b) earn a good salary that more than covers childcare. But I can still feel sympathy for those who struggle and understand why they are shocked and horrified at the cost of childcare.

£57.50 per week per child.

I pay £168.40 per month for just after school care (until 6pm). This amount is calculated by working out the number of term time weeks in a year & then divided by 12.

The nursery I work at is £99.50 per week which is 8-9 and pick up from school-5. It's an extra £2.35 a day if you book until 5.30. We're the only nursery that offers this although there are a few childminders that offer the service too. The nursery I send my daughter to would charge more if they offered the service I expect.

No I have zero knowledge of childcare costs I’ve just been trying to help a friend out and I was surprised how much it is.
Reading the replies though it seems to be a standard amount. I
Don’t really know much about childcare costs I was just worried maybe it was overly costly

Ours is £5 for breakfast club (7.30-8.45), and £8 for after school club (3.15-6pm). Local Childminders are £5/hr/child. We use a mixture and pay approx £600 a month during term time (2x children). In the holidays it's approx £250/wk per child, once you factor in the extra you pay for a full day rather than a 'school' day.

Breakfast club is £10 and after school club £28 per child per day at one that's just opened near us. So £190 a week.

My school is 7.30 - 8.45am £6 breakfast and £27 3.30-6pm A DAY!

You can pay via government scheme where you get 20% off childcare, may be worth looking into but your cost seems less than Greater London prices!!!

@Hoppetyflop - I live in Greater London, and mine is MUCH cheaper than yours! I think it varies wildly from school to school; my friend in Sevenoaks pays much more than we do in SW London.