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.

@Jimmyneutronsforehead I have no idea who came up with the phrase "walking in a crocodile" to describe walking in pairs in a line but it's a really old phrase.
I might have to Google it's origins because I am curious now 😂😂😂🐊

We have just stopped after school care due to costs… when I went to pick my two daughters up previously they were often the only ones there. What do people do? Surely nowadays most families have two working parents and not only school hours? Why is uptake so low?
(I am lucky with a flexible office job so I am currently picking them up in the middle of my day then sticking them in front of tv and going back to work… )

Wow there is so much difference in cost between ASC’s. I used to work in one and it was always difficult to staff as not many people want to work 3-6pm foe close to min wage. Our one charges £5 up until 4.30pm and then £7 for 4.30-6pm, which seems really cheap to me. I think it runs at a loss though and some kids places are funded by the school. Not sure how long it can continue for.

Yep-uptake is so low as so many more families are able to work flexibly now.

Within our school community, many households have at least one person WFH who can do the school run, then let the children play/watch telly with a snack in the other room. It's saving them a fortune.

This happened after Covid for us - so many people went to being able to work from home and have more flexible working the primary school said it just wasn’t viable.
I help a friend and she helps me, we both have flexitime and I have a childminder 2 days a week as she is rammed otherwise I’d use her more.
the school wraparound sounds expensive but when you work it out it probably barely covers the wages, equipment/ craft or art materials, food and drinks they serve.

they have talked about opening one again but only running it 3 days a week. I’m on the school PTA we ran a survey and tried to identify which days people would use and only about 2-3 people said a Friday for example but lots of people said Monday/ Tuesday/ Wednesday and so they are considering trialing it for 3 days a week, but I’m reluctant to loose my Childminders space incase it shuts again and my boys are year 5 and year 6 so only another 1-2 years of wraparound needed anyway and my partner is a teacher so is about for the kids all of the holidays.

I think once these free breakfast clubs are all rolled out they’ll be an influx If it’s free but if people have 2-3 kids it gets quite expensive.

2 weeks notice is terrible tho they should at least run until October half term to allow some time for people to put other arrangements in place.

I expect ours will shut soon, our numbers have declined sharply. The reason numbers have decreased so much are:

• Stay at Home Mum does all school runs.
• Parents who both work from home alternate doing the school runs/both do it together. They often schedule a break to do the afternoon school run and spend time socialising with the SAHMs at the park before logging back on. SAHMs sometimes cover the odd work phone call during these social times if one does need to pop home.
• Mum works in the evening when Dad is home so she can still do the school runs/be there after school.
• Mum or Dad is a taxi driver or driving instructor. That’s very in at our school, as it’s flexible around the school day.
• Part-time working parents share after school cover for each other in the form of a reciprocal play date.

I absolutely agree it sounds similar to where we are.
people just look for alternative options for how to make things work.
There are also a lot of grandparents doing school runs here too to help out.

Yes, that too. Some have 2 sets available, one drives 5 hours across the country fortnightly to help.

OP- Sorry to hear there’s not been much notice. That’s tough.

I hope ours doesn’t shut. They are incredibly useful for ad hoc/emergency situations too, often more reliable than other parents when understandably things can fall through if their own child falls ill, etc.

Interesting thread

At my kids school, the ASC is £16 - and it's expanding, more and more parents are using it.

We hybrid work as do most of the other school parents we know and we all still use the ASC. But we all have busy and not especially predictable jobs. And TBH my kids much prefer it to having to keep out of the way while I finish up work.

I think nationally tho, especially with the roll out of the new funding from 9 months there are very limited spaces and the childcare sector is struggling for various reasons.

I’m lucky to be able to compress full time hours to 4 days so I do a set day in the week of school runs and my friend also does a day a week. Another day I start later and do the morning and then she can leave at 2pm having started early (she brings her kids to me at 6:30am!) and collect them then mine do the childminder 2 days same 2 days as hers but it’s a real juggle.

We’ve made it work and it won’t be forever we keep telling ourselves but it is difficult.

I don’t know what the answer is really.

the head at our school said ideally we need 20-25 kids at each session (£6.50 breakfast) then £8 afterschool to make it viable with paying staff and covering costs but I think starting mid year in January could be problematic as people have themselves sorted now and perhaps trying to re-launch something in the September would be better?

There’s no such thing as water tight childcare. Where should the money come from to fund your after school child are needs?

Our primary had to close breakfast club then afterschool after covid. So many parents worked from home or flexed their hours that there just wasn't the demand

They did this at our school and numbers are better and it’s thriving

Ours runs four days a week, but only until 430. They have outside providers who do a specific activity, so art club on a Monday, football each Tuesday etc. It’s £10-11 a day.

I think once these free breakfast clubs are all rolled out they’ll be an influx If it’s free

The only schools I know of who signed up as early adopters of the 'free' breakfast club scheme have pulled out! It was a shambles-the government barely funded toast and a drink for each child, let alone staffing. My school currently has a great breakfast club (despite after school club being about to close) which covers its costs and is well attended. If we had to offer it free, it would fold.

'Free' breakfast clubs will become the same as 'free' childcare for 30 hours, and 'free' nhs dentistry. Sounds great on paper but if you can't find somewhere locally to offer it, it's not going to benefit you at all.

Yes, it just doesn't sound particularly viable to me. No doubt it'll be fine in some schools and areas, but not nationally.

Schools already struggle to staff themselves during the day, and these hours are likely to be even less attractive. A lot of people either don't want or can't logistically manage jobs requiring them to be at work before 8. It can make childcare and sometimes public transport more complex, for those relying on them, and a place in the club for the worker's DC only works if they happen to attend the same school.

a place in the club for the worker's DC only works if they happen to attend the same school.

Exactly!

The only two schools round here who've been able to take up the free breakfast are ones that already only charged 50p per child (there's a business man locally who funded it mostly).

You don’t - mine has 2 adults for around 20 children

But you surely have to employ at least 3 staff. Otherwise the club has to close every time 1 of the 2 leaves, is sick, needs training etc?

Nice try, but it couldn't be more obvious that you're just jealous and bitter. It isn't our fault you don't have the skills to get a WFH job.

Quite a few places round here run with just 2 staff. Means they have to close if one is ill (and more often than ideal they have to work even when they should be at home ill).

It's a shame costs have meant changes to practise - work we ran our playscheme with breakfast club and asc it was seen as poor practise in an inspection to run with two staff as if anything happens to one of your adults the children are virtually unsupervised while the remaining adult deals with the issue. Whereas it's now very normal in many settings.

We run with two and the goodwill of other school staff to step in if needed!

My DDs primary did have free breakfast club. We were pressurised to use it as it was unpopular.
Problem was most parents didn’t work so for them it meant getting up earlier. It only opened at 8.15am which was zero help if you had a job you needed to get to. DD was coeliac and they didn’t actually cater for her properly anyway.

I was waiting for someone to say this. So many people I know pull this stunt and I have no idea how they get away with it….