Letter informing parents about the closure of after school club

[oodles50]

Apologies for this, but this has annoyed me this afternoon and I feel like I need to vent about it!

We received a letter this afternoon totally out of the blue informing us that our school’s after school wrap around care is closing in two weeks time.

The school apologised for this but said there aren’t enough numbers for it to be ‘viable’.

I have several friends who talk about how oversubscribed their children’s after school club is, and I can’t comprehend how there aren’t enough children each day to cover the costs.

What’s more annoying is that in the letter they said don’t worry, there’s another setting down the road that can offer wrap around care - it’s double the price! (£8.50 vs £15.50 a day).

My DD has just started in reception and a big reason why we chose this school over another one we liked, was ironically the wrap around care provision. I just feel like we’ve had two weeks of school and just settled into things and the rug has been pulled, and I’m left scrabbling around, working out if I can change my hours, or if I’m going to be forced to pay double the amount I was expecting.

Good for them.

Envy isn't a good look

What full time hours allow you to be free before school, during drop off time, and then during collection and after ? If you drop off at school, then come home and log on, then log off in time to get to school for pickup, then drive home, and look after your kids until your other half gets in, how are you fitting 40-plus hours a week in? Or do you work with primary aged kids in the house, if so how do you actually get proper work done?

my own mum worked nights, dropped us off then went to bed for 5 hours, got up and picked up, did tea bath homework etc then went back to a night shift when my dad came in at 8pm. I suspect that’s not what everyone’s doing though!!

I’m not envious, they’ll get found out eventually as a lot will are slowly being asked to go back to the office and are shitting themselves about having to put a shift in!

Thats not a lot of notice. I would be pissed off too.
All the schools round here are 15 a day though. 8.50 seems very cheap. You can get tax free childcare for it too which helps a little.

this Is the life of many parents at my kids school, I could name about 15 who post this sort of routine on their social media most days but tbf they could be completely bullshitting as instagram is hardly known for its realism! Couple of of them ‘work from home’ doing influencing so tbh that’s not actually a job.

One parent might work 7-3 while the other works 10-6.
Some people work from home and can flex their hours to do the school run.
Some people work school hours and then do extra in the evenings, or at weekends.
Some people work shifts.
Some people have family living with them who can help with childcare.
Some have older siblings at home who can "supervise" while they work and are on hand in case of an emergency.

Also, not all jobs require you to be sat at a desk for eight hours straight. Lots of people can work from their phones, or fit in their hours as and when. It's very normal.

You seem to have a very outdated view of the workplace.

Night shifts. Split shifts. Hospitality where you don't start til after school. Any job where you've got to do a certain number of hours/tasks but have control over when you do them. An other half who's in already because they wfh too and finish before you do. Jobs with core hours that fall within the school day but significant flexibility orherwise. Own business offering your services when it's convenient to you and totalling over 35 hours a week.

Also, loads of older primary kids are fine entertaining themselves for a couple of hours, or potentially having an eye kept by an older sibling. Mine goes to family for preference, but would be fine in the house. You're a secondary teacher, some of your pupils probably do it.

Childcare is really expensive to provide and operates on very fine margins. It's such a shame but at £8.50 it's probably just not making enough money to carry on going.

Well, you're doing a good job of appearing envious, that's for sure.

It’s all about the area. Our school had a low number for children who were eligible for PEF - low income families who tend to have one SAHP, or other family member who provide childcare. The after school club was very over subscribed. Until Covid when more people WFH then the numbers dropped and it was easier to get a place. The school in the next area over had a much higher number of PEF eligible children, their ASC was never that busy and closed after Covid because more people were WFH.

We have an ASC club who picks children up from schools and takes them back to their base in a local community centre. That seems to be the model that works best, but it is more expensive to run.

Whatever you say. Good job there’s still some people willing to actually get off their arses and go to work! You’d be the first to complain if your kids teacher decided they needed to teach via zoom for childcare purposes or your gp decided they work virtually ‘fitting it in when they can’ !

My job is more flexible than yours, understandable as you're a teacher

Nope, not at all - I'd be quite happy with OOH GP appointments online - it would be perfect for me, actually

You go on about this far too much for you not be envious so don’t try to claim otherwise.

By the way, thanks for lumping all the wfhers into the category of “lazy sods who do nothing”. When my kids were in primary, I was part time wfh and technically supposed to finish just before school pick up time but I would frequently come back and do more work. By the time they were at secondary, I was on 0.8. In the days after Covid when they weren’t getting the bus, I would take half an hour out of my day to pick them up. The boss knew, and I still fulfilled my hours and then some. Even now on the same hours and neither still at school or college, I usually work a bit more than my contracted hours and at certain times of the year, a lot more. My boss works similarly flexibly, we all do as we are a remote organisation but he’s more likely to be working late or weekends. We don’t have to be logged on by certain times but I’m usually logged on by 9. And usually logged on still at 5. Some of my colleagues work later if they do school runs. It may come as a surprise to you but it works. Everyone puts in max effort when they’re working because they know they're trusted to do their jobs and are not limited by a clock. It becomes very obvious if someone is not pulling their weight. Most WFHers I know put in a shift, as much as you seem to want not to believe it.

My DH can actually wfh but he chooses to go in 4 days because the WFH contingent are considered less reliable and less able to produce decent work

I’ve very deliberately chosen a profession no own can work from home in so don’t know why you think I’m jealous than you can sit rotting in your pjs on a laptop and never need to interact with a real human it’s literally my idea of hell

You're right. You're so important and work so much harder than EVERYBODY else. Including myself.

You're very defensive and aggressive for someone who isn't jealous 😂

Our GP already offers appointments over the phone or online. And they have a triage system which can bypass a GP appointment and refer you straight on to another service. I was referred directly to a skin hub recently, and had an appointment with the skin hub 24 hours after I filled in the online form.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8813120/

not for me thanks, absolutely fraught with dangers unless a very simple solution/ condition.

You’re clearly someone who is also defensive about their lack of ability to work properly sat on their arse at home. Why the fuck would I be jealous of you, See ya.

Yes, ours do too actually - we can have phone appointments, online appointments, same-day appointments etc. They're fantastic. They also offer physio and a MIU.

When I have (for example) a medication review there's absolutely no point in me wasting a full appointment time when the same goal can be achieved in two minutes via Zoom!

Yeah this is happening a lot now. Nannies is definitely the way forward they will build relationships with your kids etc.

I don't even work from home, what are you on about? 😂

Oh well, good thing we're not all like you then