For goodness sake, schools are not there for baby sitting. They are there for educating children. Before and after school care should be the responsibility of the parents, not schools. This idea that some of you seem to have that schools can operate child minding all these extra hours before and after the start of lessons is ridiculous. Teaching staff cannot perform all their extra duties before and after the start of the child’s lessons (staff meetings, lesson planning, classroom preparation, data analysis, data collection, writing reports for other professionals regarding a child’s needs, meeting with other professionals ( psychologists, social workers for example) , etc, etc, whilst also looking after your children at the same time. The children would have to be somewhere. Oh yes, their classrooms - just where the teacher needs to be before the start of and at the the end of the teaching day to do the majority the things I’ve listed. But hey, surely they can fit a bit of child care in at the same time, after all, they’re paid enough, (yeh, right) and surely they can do some of these extra things at home (actually, they do do some of these things at home), so your children can be cared for by them until 6 pm! (🤬), after all, they don’t have lives of their own to live do they. Some even have their own children to care for you know, children they might actually like to have the opportunity to spend time with, rather than child mind yours.
I’m convinced that some of you still believe that teaching staff roll into school 10 minutes before the bell rings for start of lessons and roll out again at the end of the school day 10 minutes after the children have left, so surely can take on extra hours to look after your children. Sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t work like that.
Let’s not forget, too, that they are your children, and you are the ones that have responsibility for the majority of their care - not teachers, not child minders, not after school club leaders.
Whilst they are at school, for learning, then of course, teachers are responsible for their care and well being - that’s a given, and rightly so, they have a duty of care which is as it should be, but before and after the school day it’s you, the parents, who have that role, and it’s therefore your responsibility to sort out child care to fit around your working life, rather than expect schools to do that job for you by being open for extra hours to effectively child mind.