After school childcare - do I really have to have a mobile phone to collect my own child?

[MamaVV]

My DD attends after school care run by an outside provider but on school site in the school hall. The quality of care is fab and DD loves the activities.

The part that annoys me is that you can only collect your child by ringing a mobile number and telling one of the childcare workers that you are at the front gate. They then have to stop their work (not good practice) and walk to the front gate (prob a 3 min walk) to let the parent in.

If they are busy then they can’t come to the gate. If it’s noisy then they don’t hear the phone ringing. If your phone is flat then you are literally **ed until another parent happens to leave and hold the gate open to let you in (safeguarding issue??)

On one occasion I left my phone at home and was outside for 30 minutes waiting and I’ve often been late to collect second DD from childminder due to being made to wait so long! The road is dark in the evening and as a single woman standing on the pavement for an unknown amount of time, it’s less than ideal. I’ve emailed the company and their answer was very ‘computer says no’.

Do other childcare settings assume that everyone always has a working mobile phone on them?

At my school, parents come to the front office where there is an intercom. They phone through and the child is brought to them. They sometimes have to wait a few minutes especially if the child is slow to put their coats on etc!
Parents are not allowed on the premises due to safeguarding.
The cost of installing an external intercom is eyewateringly expensive! Also, it's not unreasonable for them to expect you to phone them once you're at ( or near) the gate. I can guarantee that every parent in my school has a mobile phone, as do many of their children, and we have 75% pupil premium!
It's not ideal if you have to wait a while, but it's not the end of the world either. And it's certainly not an issue that you need to go bleating to Ofsted about. The only valid concern you've raised is that sometimes parents leaving let other parents in through the open gate. If you want the process to be speedier, they will have to recruit more staff and your costs will go up.

Ours uses combination locks only for the time that after school club is on, so only parents of children attending after school club need to know it and the code is changed periodically. When the school is properly locked up for the night/holidays/weekends a proper key operated padlock is used instead so parents can't just wander onto school premises anytime.

They are a ‘charity’ and charge £330 a month per child for after school care so should be providing a quality service.

Goodness me that's a lot

Our school is £10 a night so even if you attended every night it would only be around £220 a month. £330 a month with such an unworkable system would frustrate me no end, and the staff member being left alone would concern me regarding safeguarding. At the very least I hope they're fed well and have a variety of activities for that price.

Our out of school club charges £16 for after school (3.15 to 6 pm) and £5 for breakfast (7.45-8.45 am). It’s also a charity. This is pretty similar to other local clubs. It’s nit a particularly affluent part of the world either. £10 is cheap!

There is a video intercom linked to the office who have direct line of sight to the gate. Usually you beep the office and they buzz the gate so you can go in.

Kids club can’t do this cause they are in the hall which is much further away and has no bell / intercom. Kids club say the premises is not their responsibility. School say opening the gate for kids club parents is not their job.

Bike run ski- ya, these are pretty much the prices at ours. I wish it was closer to £10.

They have lots of children (between 60 - 120
I guess but I’d have to count) and usually around 4/5 staff. Sometimes there can be 30/40 kids outside with 1 person watching.

Soontobe60- that’s a good system but our office shuts earlier than the kids club so you can ring the intercom for the office but no one will answer it. If you strike it lucky and an office person answers the intercom then they cheekily tell you to phone the kids club cause they work for the school not the external provider. (I.e. they feel they shouldn’t be stopping their work to answer the intercom cause they aren’t paid to do that for kids club).

Soon to be60 > I have a phone that usually works very well but sometimes it’s flat, sometimes it’s at home, sometimes it’s in the bottom of my handbag. And often, even if you phone you may have to ring repeatedly before they answer and then leave the kids to do the little jog to the gate. Would a 5 - 30 minute wait to collect to your child every day not piss you off when you know your little baby is also waiting to be collected and desperate for mama?

I had no idea £10 was so cheap, ours is 3.15-6pm and includes food.

4/5 staff doesn't seem enough for that amount of children, and one staff member outside with 30-40 is insane.

What if one staff member is washing up from dinner, another is outside and a third goes to the gate to let in parents. That could mean 2 staff are left with around 80 children.

The video intercom seems more sensible than relying on the parents phoning, so it's a shame that can't be used. Perhaps a portable doorbell as a previous poster suggested would be helpful. One with a flashing light which would be visible even if the room was too loud for it to be heard.

I think taking to the head or governors is a more logical thing to do.

£330 a month is not expensive - I was actually thinking that was pretty good value! At £10 a night, I'm guessing the ASC may get (for example) free room hire or be heavily subsidised.

The problem with OFSTED is that they may not be registered. If they’re only there for a coupe of hours they don’t have to register.

If they are registered then definitely report this practice, the whole set up is a shambles!!!

Our after school care service is registered with the Care Inspectorate in Scotland - is there a similar body where you are? Who does inspections and do you have access to the reports? Might be interesting to see if this set up has been commented on in the report as it sounds completely bonkers!

the whole set up is a shambles!!!

I agree. It doesn't sound like a sustainable or sensible approach to collecting children. I would be very interested in an update if you manage to sort something out Mama.

Ice Rebel > I’ll keep you posted

Our school has a separate intercom for the after school club. Our nursery had a key pad and changed the number regularly.
Not up to office staff.

Thank you Mama, I hope they manage to come to a better arrangement.

That's a ridiculous system.

The afterschool care I am involved with can't use the main buzzer system as the school office is sometimes locked if the office staff are busy elsewhere. So we have a wireless doorbell. It's not a swanky system, but it works.

Parents letting other people into the building assuming that they are parents is a big safeguarding issue. We've actually removed places when parents have repeatedly let other people into the building because we were in danger of losing out lease as the school don't want random people mooching aorund the school building (we also dont have line of sight for the door).

That's a really poor set up, and OFSTED wouldn't like either the safeguarding or the making it difficult for people with no mobile or credit angle.

How long do they run for? Is it more than 2 hours per day?

At my son's nursery we're not allowed to use mobile phones on the premises. We also have fingerprint entry system.b

Mine would be £140 a month if one kid went every day!!!
Mobile doorbell is what ours uses too. The phone thing is wack

one staff member with 310 children outside...

playground duty. most places had two staff outside though.

worse, 1 staff member outside, two schools sharing the same playground. before school. nightmare.

going back to the thread, no yanbu. pain in the backside, especially for those of us with dodgy phones. (cheap and cheeerful due to asd children)

one staff member with 310 children outside...

Is that a typing error? Surely one person can't be responsible for 310 children.