£66 for an after school club?

[EmmaJane2025]

Just had some details from school about this term’s after school clubs. Two of them are £40 and the other, £66!
For context, this is a state school with a mix of a few students from comfortably-off families, many average & some Pupil Premium students. Obviously if this was an Independent school then this wouldn’t even cross my mind to be an issue but a state school? Do state schools usually charge for after school clubs? This one hasn’t done before; I’ve never been required to pay for the ones my DC attended previously.

Perhaps I’m missing a factor in it all, perhaps I’m out of date? It just seems unfair that students from lower income families will likely miss out on something I truly believe all kids should have the opportunity to attend - extra curricular activities.
AIBU?

Maybe ask for more details. I have no idea what that is, so maybe it's a club where they are laying for outside speakers, or each week they do something different. It may also be to cover the cost of equipment I guess.

Do you think? £66 For 40 mins of ‘daring to believe’ x 6?

That seems fairly standard for an extra curricular activity. There are no free ones at my DC school

No it’s being run by a class teacher from the school.

Our school is the same. @EmmaJane2025 perhaps the teachers / school staff have finally had enough of parents sending children to things they don't actually want to do, simply because it's free. 🤷‍♀️

We have 2 days of after school care/club 3-5:30pm and it's £60pw.

Don't sign up if it irks you so much.

Don't dare believe lol

After school wraparound is £6 an hour for DS1, although we can use tax free childcare for it

Sounds reasonable to me.
A staff member still has to give their time. Which isn't free.
Unenroll your child if you don't want to pay, it's not compulsory.

I did wonder that but the school staff hand picked the kids who get to attend the FREE clubs from those who showed interest, as there’s only 8 spaces on each club. However they’ve stopped the free clubs entirely now!

Ah well. I guess mine miss out then. I mean DD doesn’t want the ‘believe’ club anyway but the others sounded interesting.

Thanks everyone

I think that’s on the pricier side for a school activity. The most expensive school club I’ve had was coding at £14 a session from an outside provider. The other external clubs are around £7-9 for an hour. Wrap around is £17 for 3 hours but that isn’t what the OP is asking about.

I haven’t enrolled mine?

The ones in my DC’s school are £3 per session for the ones run by an external provider. On the day they have the external PE teacher in, he’s already paid for the day so his after school activity club is free. I think £66 for 6 x 40 minute sessions is very expensive.

I wasn’t asking whether to sign up or not 🙄

I do nit thunk £11 per session is bad at all.

No of course afrer school club isnt free.

I don’t no what the activity is. But yes I think it’s fine. My school charge us to buy own own children’s crafts though so maybe I’m just used to the added cost of everything at school 😅

Schools are in dire financial positions.

My school runs after school club in house to try and raise a bit more money for the school.

It can be bought through tax free child care though which means the government pays the school 20% of it - it's £4 per session and there are two sessions after school running until 4.30 and the second 4.30 to 5.30. With TFC that's £6.40 for 2 hours after school childcare which is an absolute bargain.

If you don't need it for childcare and your child isn't interested in the activity don't use it. Things have changed the last few years in schools and they probably can't afford to offer it as a nice free extra anymore.

Again, it always has been at this school and no, I’m not talking about childcare!

I think OP is having a hard time with PPs. £11 per session is steep for a non-specialist class.
what does daring to believe involve?

at our school groups like this, run by teachers, are either free or nominal amount (about £25 for a whole term).

But what does it actually involve? You implied you don't know, so yes it might be a school teacher overseeing it but maybe there is something more to it?

At my kids school it's the same with teachers generally running clubs for free, but there are some clubs that do get offered where they have to pay. Pupil premium students do not have to pay the full amount (and I believe if they talk to the school then they might be able to get a place covered completely).

There are loads of extracurricular clubs at lunch, before school and after school at our state primary. Some charge as much as £100 a term, others are free. The local school with the highest proportion of FSM pupils gets more funding and they have far more free sports clubs. Ours does not have that many FSM pupils, and so everyone is expected to pay up, as it should be.

Ds’ primary school did very few clubs after school, when I asked why they said that they couldn’t staff them so would have to get an external provider in which was too expensive for some parents. I volunteered to run one of the sports clubs for a year and that encouraged other parents to do the same. Soon had stuff on every day…

Thank you. I think a lot of posters either live in London/down south where everything is 3 x the value, or have no earthly idea about how many children live in poverty/are simply disadvantaged. I also wonder if some don’t realise what Pupil Premium is?

That’s cheap! It’s an activity with overheads and it’s chargeable

After school activities were around £5 a session when my Uni aged kids were in Primary School 15 years ago. Honestly, that seems fine pricewise to me. Not particularly sure what the activity is, or whether I'd want to pay for it, but in general, I'd think around the £10 per session mark seems about right for an afterschool activity.