To wonder how preschools survive?

[warmchocolate]

The preschools near us look lovely but are only open 9-3 and not in school holidays. Even for teachers they’d have to be at school for 9 and leave after 3. So I’m wondering how they do actually get by - are a lot more people SAHMs than I thought!?

With a lot of hard work and fund raising from committee members. Some childminders will also drop their charges to a preschool and collect them after too.

People on mat leave and people who have older children at school so need holiday care anyway and teachers of course!

Ours does wraparound care so 8-5.45 in term time so no different from a school. It's brilliant and has a really consistent staff team which is different from lots of private nurseries. I also like that its not for profit but there is a lot of parent fundraising. A lovely community feel. Now the free hours are coming in for two year olds it has a waiting list.

Are you asking how the preschools make a profit? Often by charging more for lunch/younger children to make up the losses caused by the government ‘free’ hours. Or they don’t survive and fold.

Your post seems to be more about how parents work when your preschools offer 9-3 though? I presume lots of the people who use them work from home, don’t work, have grandparents helping out or use wraparound care. You mentioned teachers specifically-their working hours will be more like 7.30/8am starting time and a 5/6/7 collection time-the same as lots of other jobs.

I used a childminder around preschool and also worked part time. Lots of people with young dc don’t work.

The preschool near us has the longest waiting list, it can’t accept anyone new until Sept ‘27. It’s 9 - 3 but does have wraparound care if needed - all the ones we looked at had the option for wraparound care, so that probably helps with hours!

People on mat leave and people who have older children at school so need holiday care anyway and teachers of course!

Why, ‘teachers of course’?

Sorry badly phrased maybe! Teachers don't need school holiday care. They do need wrap around care but lots of preschools do this.

Ah - none of the ones near us do wraparound. It makes sense if they do of course.

When I said survive I was really wondering how they had enough children to fill spaces .

Lots of kids at ours have mums on mat leave who are using the half day or 8.45-3.15.
If you are using the free hours they only cover term time anyway so this is more affordable for lots of people. Also baby activities often don't run in the school holidays and people want to go away and not double pay for childcare.

There's a big waiting list for our local preschool. My ds2 went there from when he was 2-4. It was very convenient as on the same site as the primary school ds1 was at and considerably cheaper than a private nursery. I was only working 22 hours a week then so I made it work by flexing my hours around it, and some grandparent help. Here lots of people use childminders too.

Mine is 8:45-3:30 and completely full. Lots of parents with older children at the school next door, but also lots of eldest children, and parents with children at other less local schools. Chocka for September too. And not even close to being the only setting in the area, several others both preschool and day nurseries nearby. Reputation helps 🙂

Absolutely this!! My kids went to a lovely pre-school which at the time was 9-12 only and now does 9-3. My youngest is now 16 so left pre-school 10 years ago but it's still going strong. When I was on the committee (bloody hard work, btw and loads of responsibility) we had some SAHMs, some kids were dropped by granny/grandad if they were looking after the kids, childminders, some kids only did 2 or 3 mornings a week as that was the day a parent wasn't working and other days they were in another nursery 8-6.

It's another "product" in the market. If not enough people want that model, it won't survive. And if there are enough people who do want a pre-school or playgroup sort of setting, it will.

By "pre-school" do you mean one from age 3 onwards.
They're (in England anyway) part of the school system so get their money from the government.
They are different to childcare.

DD will be starting at a local preschool in September. It's been running for 30 years and has a good reputation in the area for preparing dcs for the popular prep schools. We're in an affluent London area and most dcs have nannies to cover the rest of the day (I'm a sahm but there are only a few of us, maybe 4 out of 18 parents). They don't prepare lunch - dcs bring a packed lunch. Fees are £5.5k a term for 9am-2pm, 5 days a week.

Once the eldest kid goes to school, you need to find a way to cover after school and holidays anyway, so you might as well do it for two kids as one.

But it’s pretty hard to do just for holidays for a preschooler, surely? As holiday clubs and so on won’t take under 5s to my knowledge.

True, if you need year round paid childcare. In my case we don't use holiday clubs, as we're able to cover every school holiday, between myself, DH or grandparents. It didn't make sense to pay for year round childcare for the youngest, when whoever is having eldest would happily take them both.

That's a private setting and not the type of pre school setting the OP has in mind where the fees charged can be covered by government funding but don't actually cover entire overheads. £5.5k is higher than most people's school fees of they go into indie schools.

There's no funded hours here, but there is a funded preschool year so the preschools are government funded in the same way as primary schools. Pretty much everyone goes as a stepping stone to primary school, the private nurseries and childminders do wraparound. Our childcare bill won't change when DD starts in sept but it's worth it for the more formal environment.