£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Perhaps I’m missing a factor in it all, perhaps I’m out of date?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?

Wage increases, ni hike, increase in gas and electric etc etc etc. Everything has gone up making all businesses more expensive to run. Schools are no different really.

Schools don’t get enough money (new taxes won’t be making much ) so very little can be free anymore
Increase in cost of educational trips and visits is using up more and more of the PP.

Ours are £4 per session run by staff. DS had done darts, history and Eco/science.

The annual country dancing festival, which the children practicing after school for, is free though.

Cross posted. The published Pupil Premium Strategy will be on the school website.

It’s not a personal allocation for your child (unless they are LAC). It’s additional income to schools to support this group as a whole. Look in their website and their PP statement will detail how they are spending it.

I find scouting organisation is very good value for money… beavers, cubs, brownies etc. about £40 for a whole term and longer than 40mina

None of the clubs at our school are free - they range from £10-50 a term, depending on what it is.

We are in London but 50% of the school is pupil premium - they get a very hefty discount I believe

Sounds normal to me YABU

My dc primary school stopped all after school activities when covid hit. Now they only do one club at a time for about a term a year. Before they would have a free club every day after school and one every day at lunchtime. I pay just over £3 a session for my year 7 child to do trampolining club with an outside provider.

We pay for clubs run by external people but not those run by teachers e.g. dance is £5 a week, karate is more than double that. All are 1 hour sessions. What annoys me is having to double pay for both the club and after-school care (one day a week my child goes to a club until 4.15 then on to after school care).

They were all free when I was at school and then when I was teaching at secondary schools. There was an expectation in certain subjects that you offered them.
When my DC were at school (between 2000 and 2024) they started off pretty much all being free, at primary school, then gradually as outside providers started being brought in there were charges. At secondary school they were still all free bar one or two very specialist short term clubs.

I run After School Club with another TA at our school. It’s £5 a session, from end of school till 5:15.
Some of the Clubs that take place after school have a small fee if an outside specialist comes in, but generally, those run by Teaching Staff are free.

i hear you OP. It’s not wraparound care you are booking it’s a 40min after school club costing £11 per session. Yes, I think that’s expensive.
equivalent activity clubs here work out about £3- £4 per hour session for the hour sports clubs, that’s junior school.
The high school my eldest attends all clubs are free.
If you want the full, before & afterschool wrap around care it’s more expensive, but a different thing.

My DCs are at High School now. DS does Physics club and Hockey, DD does Football, Dance and Gymnastics.
All free.
We're in the North.

We pay £65-78 a term per activity depending how long the term is. DS is doing athletics and dodgeball this term, we put him down for cooking club every term but he never gets it. That's technically an hour but by the time they've left class gone over to the hall/sports field having changed into kit, that's 10-15 minutes gone and they usually finish at least 5 minutes before the advertised finish time.

There's the odd cheaper one but it's hard to get spaces, DS did wellbeing club which mainly seemed to be basic arts/crafts and a bit of yoga that was £10 for a whole term absolute bargain.
His out of school activities are more, gymnastics is £40 a month and swimming lessons are £32.50 a month

ETA that's Essex and a very mixed demographic catchment, 37% PP eligible

Approach the school and say “ds would love to do X club. It would benefit him this way. Can some of his pupil premium finding cover it”.

If they say no you can ask them why not. They don’t need to provide a breakdown but it’s worthwhile asking.

They are free at my DCs school. £11 per 40 min session is a lot when it’s being run by teachers, that’s more than I pay for my DCs swimming lessons.

Ours doesn’t charge (usually, I think there have been activities over the years provided by outside groups, not poor overstretched teachers, who did charge). It’s similar, like a club, not childcare, only 45 minutes long. If you need anything more, it’s the actual after school club in the village hall which is £10 per session 3:30-6pm.

I wouldn’t be opposed to paying if it was something my dc was committed to. I think it’s astonishing so many teachers do it, but it’s an academy trust, so I imagine someone on the “senior leadership team” is there cracking the whip and giving them little choice in the matter.

Ours don't have staff willing to run clubs for free. They are overworked and have their own homes to go to.

Most of the clubs are run by external providers and are charged anywhere from 40 -£90 a term.

Of course they charge. Who do you expect to pay?!

as a side note they’re cheap!

Ours are £30 for 6 weeks. I don't think it's bad but it does add up if multiple kids/activities especially as our school gives very little notice.

Isn't that 16.50/hr? As an hourly rate, that doesn't sound too bad?

Bottom line, it's another way for the school to bring in money, nothing to do with the value of the activity offered. It's like loads of other polls/fees/taxes: a socially positive act which is really just revenue-raising, because without the revenue they wouldn't bother.

It used to be an expectation that primary teachers would generally run a club but that seems (rightly) to have changed now. An extra hour of running a club (plus 10 minutes for late parents and however long to organise resources) just means an extra hour of other school work for me to do at the weekend and an hour less with my own children. I suppose if the club your school is running is overpriced OP that will soon come to light if not enough sign up.

You are being massively unreasonable to expect teachers or school staff to work extra hours for free! They will have planning and meetings after school and their own homes to go to.

It might not be childcare for you but for lots of people it is as they might find it easier to balance picking up their child up at 4/4.30 with work commitments.

Pupil premium money will probably be spent on extra staffing as schools have no money and those extra TAs will focus on PP children as well as cohort as a whole. I think PP children can apply for clubs to be subsidised. There is no money to pay for clubs for all kids in this economy! At my school we are asking for donations for everything.

I thought that you were going to say it was 'mad science', my DD has paid for it for two years. It's about £11 a lesson, for a block of six. That isn't bad because they do experiments and it has an educational side.

Ours were always free until after the February school holidays. They’re now charged at £13 per club for half a term.