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.

Even if you can work from home (I do hybrid) the key is WORK, not doing the school run then having the kids home with you. Surely you are either being terrible at your job or ignoring the children after work. An afterschool club where they do activities is surely preferable to that?

Why did you quote me?

No, of course it isn't. Why on earth would you generalise that all DC are better off spending more time in a busy, noisy school environment than chilling at home? It really shouldn't be news that a lot of kids need to decompress when school finishes and wouldn't cope well with another couple of hours at the end of the day. Or just need a rest between school and whatever evening activity they have that might actually be more beneficial than hanging around with kids they've not chosen and doing colouring for a couple of hours, which is what some ASC provision looks like.

So if one child is injured like a broken bone or has an Asthma attack etc. that leaves one staff member and 19 kids while the other deals with the emergency, if two are hurt it's worse. That doesn't sound great normally there are other staff to call on in school hours.

Wow so only the highly qualified WFH and only the lowly need to go in....nice. Hey doc why didn't you do better at school then you could operate from home whilst caring for your kids?

We have two staff members running the club but have a safeguarding lead and the caretaker both on site for the duration just not in the club (but easily shoutable)

In a school chances are there will be staff members still working somewhere!

This seems to be snowballing - falling provision I mean. Dss breakfast club closed couple of weeks into term leaving some parents high and dry.

But one teacher has 30 kids for most of the day. And actually had to teach them stuff. One member of staff can perfectly well handle 19 children playing board games, colouring and doing simple crafts in the exact same space for a short period of time.

I work in finance in a MAT and spent some time looking at our 7 schools who don’t have after school club to see if it was viable. Two of them have closed their clubs in the last few years. At a cost of £8 per day we needed 19 children every day to break even. We had a max of 8 interested and most days it was between 4 and 6. It’s just not financially viable. A lot depends on the area of the school. We have 30 primary schools in our MAT so 23 run successful clubs and 7 just don’t have the interest.

Our after school club remains oversubscribed (and runs a waiting list for all the days except Fridays). They are not flexible at all- no casual booking and if you want to drop days you have to go on waiting list again to get them back. It’s pricey at £16.50 for after school until 6pm. Although I don’t love any of this about it, this thread is making me think all this is a good thing to ensure it’s sustainable!

Oh gosh, the school where I used to work is full every single day for breakfast and after school club, that said it is mainly the younger years - reception, year 1 & 2. You certainly wouldn’t be able to flexibly book spaces and it’s on a first come basis, booked one month ahead. If you don’t book this way, I’d forget you’d likely not get the space.

@KindLemur you seem unhinged

How does your child get to the other setting down the road? I assume you can't take them as you're at work.
Sounds like a child minder will be better option.

This sounds similar to the school I work in (though ours is about £11-12 I think until 5.30pm). Three form entry and full every day (90 spaces) except Friday, though even then not many spaces. I think parents of new reception children who hope to use the ASC probably get a bit of a shock when they find out they can't actually get a space because there aren't many spaces and siblings get priority.

So you’re moaning that somebody isn’t prepared to lose money looking after your child?

If there aren’t enough people using a business, there aren’t enough people using it and it’s highly likely to close down. Might also be the reason the other one is twice as expensive. It needs to cover its costs and £8.50 was ridiculously cheap.

Someone collects them and they all walk together.
Lots of schools do this.

The school I work in used to have children come to us from another school for ASC. Sadly the cost of paying for a staff member to walk them too us made it too expensive for enough parents to use to make it viable.

They don’t. They are in a school with SLT, SENCO, Admin staff and hopefully TA’s.

Which is why many ASC only run if an SLT member will stay on site for the duration.

Also FYI, small schools will rarely have more than one member of staff out of class at any time.

Rubbish. I have frequently been that teacher. I am the SENCO for a start! We don't always have a staffed office nor do we have a full time headteacher and there are certainly times when all staff have allocated roles they cannot leave ie looking after their own class or 1:1 child. It's ridiculous to suggest teachers aren't frequently responsible for a class of 30 on their own - they are.

I'm confident in saying the jealous poster is not any kind of doctor.

They were under charging hence why is not viable they can’t afford to pay staff wages, not shocked they are closing down. Unfortunately when you go for the cheap option that’s what happens.

Give over. If you work in a school where not a single adult could respond in an emergency to assist a teacher, I would strongly suggest you have major safeguarding issues.

I dont think you understood my point about economies of scale.

The point still stands that its more cost effective to attract 10 children paying £5 per hour, than 3 paying £8.

Ratios for primary age children are high. You dont need 3 after-school club staff for 12 kids.
Im sure the afterschool club staff would like to have more staff, but they can operate on less.