Wraparound care at school cancelled

[Citytocountry1]

I’ve just opened an email from our school sent last thing on Friday saying they can no longer operate wraparound care as it’s not viable due to lower numbers since last term. They said they tried to find a solution but unfortunately there isn’t one. They didn’t even consult us parents who use it and ask us for more money or even say to the wider school use it or lose it, just decided to close it in March. I would gladly have paid more or had a discussion to figure out how to make it viable.

I work in a non wfh business 4 full 9-5 days a week, Thursday I work until 2.30 so I can pick them up at 3.15pm once a week. The children attend 4 days a week after school. Husband works in a production/manufacturing role and he is going to see what his work will let him reduce hours wise but we know that means pay reduction.

there are no childminders in our area, no nanny’s on childcare websites, the last childminder closed during Covid, we sadly don’t have family in the country so no help there, and the nearest school with wraparound is over 8 miles in the other direction of my work. I don’t really have any friends to ask either, we are quite new here we do know school parents but we don’t have the kind of relationships which some seem to have with each other to ask them to take our children home to theirs after school for nearly 3 hours. That’s a huge ask and I don’t know anyone who would do it.

just so upset and stressed tonight lots of tears and worry about what we do now. I don’t even know what to say to my work, the kind of job I do I can’t do from home and we can’t afford for me to lose it. Aren’t school supposed to consult and figure out how to help make it work?

feeling so panicked about this happening and sad as the children enjoyed the activities at after school and we were able to work knowing they were looked after 😓

I hate the saying 'school isn't childcare' yet if you claim universal credit you're told it is!

Of course school is child care. Until the age of about 9, it is both child care and education. In fact there is little distinction, because small children always need looking after, and are always learning. After that children don't need as much looking after, and it's not.

Just like holiday clubs. My dc goes to a holiday football club. Is it childcare? Or is it for her to learn football? Clearly both, it's a stupid distinction at that age

Update to add the leadership team have emailed me back to say apologies for the decision they deeply regret having to inform us with only a week left to run when we get back from half term, they had a governors meeting last week, explored the options of finding government funding etc they all concluded it just isn’t feasible given the ongoing costs and difficulties to attract more parents to use it

But this isn’t true. My DD is in reception - the school day starts at 8.40 and ends at 3.30. That is when the education takes place. That is when she is under the responsibility of a paid teaching professional and she is taught a curriculum. Yes, of course she needs ‘caring’ for during those hours, but that takes place in a structured and educational setting.

Breakfast and after school clubs have no educational requirements or expectations, and are not operated by paid teachers - these are purely for childcare purposes.

To maintain the two are the same or interchangeable is ridiculous.

I do not use extra clubs. My DD is dropped off and picked up by me when school starts and finishes. She is in education only. Any caring for at the start or the end of the day outside of school is done by me. But if I did have to use an after school club I would certainly not consider it on a par with the school day. It solely meets a childcare requirement when the actual education ends

I'm sorry to hear you now have even less time to work out a solution. It does suggest the financial trouble at the school is even worse than anticipated though.

I didn't say they were the same or on a par. Clearly the quality of academic education at school is higher than at football club. But they are still both doing both childcare and education.

When my dc's grandparents babysit for us on an occasional weekend, they are also doing both childcare and helping to educate my children.

I'm a teacher so I'm not undervaluing teachers. But education does not just happen in a classroom. It happens from the moment they open their eyes in the morning to the moment they fall back to sleep at night. Literally everything they see and hear is all learning for them. Yes that includes what the 18yo minimum wage football coach says to them on the pitch at holiday club. It all counts, it's all "their education".

Haven’t read all the posts so I apologise if anyone has already mentioned it but our school afterschool club closed a few years ago (it reopened a few months later with a new provider). Luckily for us a local nursery started an after school provision which was more expensive but opened later and provided a minibus to get the children from school to the nursery. We are very rural as well so we would have been really stuck if this hadn’t happened. Might be worth looking at nurseries locally and see if they have any provision.

You may think there's some kind of toggle switch in a kid's brain "Learning Mode" and "Non Learning Mode" but I assure you there isn't. It's all their education. Even when you stick the TV on while you cook dinner. Or what you talk about at the dinner table.

There's just no such thing as "purely childcare when the education ends".

Well good for you. Clearly you are either a SAHP or have managed to get a part time term time only job. Either way you are not the main breadwinner or on your own, I assume. I lost my childcare a number of times during primary and sorting it out was incredibly stressful.

I know seems worrying. I wonder if this means redundancy is looming for at least one of the team who ran the wraparound 😓

But out of school clubs registered with Ofsted’s Early Years’ Register do have to offer the EYFS in the same way as reception in schools.

I emailed the local nursery today and they said unfortunately they can only offer early years and as it stands they are oversubscribed in their current 7-7pm model. What gets me is what on earth do all those parents do when the toddlers who stay to 7pm go to school.

Agree my children have been learning about the most curious of subjects at afteachool they love it! They pic a random subject out of a hat and spend half and hour talking about it this week was ancient Egypt and how did they think the pyramids are built. Then they built a pyramid fort and had a blast . Off to the library on Saturday to get them books about Egypt now as it’s ignited a real curiosity about it in them. It’s been a brilliant thing for allowing them to explore subjects outside of the curriculum. Edited to add this has made me even sadder it’s ending as I haven’t told them yet 😣

It wouldn't surprise me unfortunately if redundancy was next especially with the quick turn around in when the ASC will cease operating.

I really hope you manage to find a solution, hopefully there will be another parent who can help you out of another nursery who have space. If not unfortunately moving schools might be your only option.

My DD did quite a bit of homework and reading at ASC. This was by special arrangement with the Headteacher because DD had incredibly extreme meltdowns over homework (she did turn out to have SEN later). But it was a private school and parents absolutely did choose it for the wraparound as well as the education, and they knew which side their bread was buttered!

I reckon 2025, maybe 2024 was the start of this being a real problem for parents. In the mid 2010s the birth rate was higher than now (admittedly not hugely so) but also WFH was nowhere near as prevalent. Simply there were more kids requiring more wrap around care to fill places up to 2019.

Then covid happened alongside a lot of low birth rate years back to back. Obviously during Covid and immediately after hardly anyone needed wrap around care for children in primary school as WFH was the norm and you can fudge 1 or 2 hours of work during a pandemic with a 5+ year old at home at the end of the day.

I reckon we are now at a level - lots of people doing hybrid, maybe 2 or 3 days in the office and 2 or 3 days from home. They maybe need 1 or 2 days of wraparound care at most. In the context of low birth rates, I suspect the demand has just never got back to pre covid levels and probably never will.

It won’t help you now, but I really hope there is some kind of strategy for wraparound care going forward, as clearly if some suburban schools with 30 to 60 kids per intake are struggling, then rural schools with <10 kids per year will be on their knees.

Also potentially a vicious cycle going on - parents see slightly reduced provision for wraparound so choose jobs/working patterns that allow them to do pickup a couple of days more a week, so demand is further reduced, so people make working decisions in response to that.

Although one of my local preschools has started to provide wraparound care in the last few years, so who knows ... must be very dependent on location.

I agree @Yewoo and it's an absolute bugger for those of us with jobs that cannot be done remotely or from home! Fortunately my DC is beyond the wraparound days but I well remember leaving her with a total stranger (albeit one from a good agency with excellent references) one day as I had no other options 😥 it was fine but I hated that I had to do it.

One of the things I really love about it is that school have a big playing field and (especially during the summer) they just all barrel around outside playing 40-40, tag, manhunt etc. Because kids don't get unsupervised playtime in a gang like that much, it's priceless. And they are learning! Social rules, negotiation, how to play with all ages.

That's really lovely to hear, the staff must be excellent. Hopefully one of them might be able to offer some babysitting in the short term as some pp have suggested

So it sounds as if they haven't considered all options. Could you and a few of the other affected parents write to the governing committee and ask for a review of the decision, bearing in mind all the options? As a governor myself I'm very aware that governors are from all walks of life and would not necessarily have been aware of all options when the school presented worrying financial figures to them. I might be clutching at straws on your behalf, but did they consider raising the cost (particularly that ridiculously low one hr charge), providing taxi/minibus from the federated schools to open their ASC to other children or providing transport to another ASC facility, with transport costs covered by parents? If a few of you wrote, explaining you may have to consider removing your children from the school then you might find a wider range of options are considered.

I’m sure minibus/taxi would ramp up the costs.

Also it is possible that they are having to reduce staff numbers but obviously they won’t be able to tell OP that yet.

OP could ask whether they looked at increasing costs, but sometimes when it is so few children using it it can be the hassle of ensuring you have suitably first aid qualified etc staff on site as well as cost implications.

This happened to us 2 years ago, but with no notice at all. Our wraparound was run by a third-party childcare company (also do nurseries locally) and I think the difficulty in staffing (not many people happy to work 2 hours in the morning, then 2.5hours in the afternoon/eve) and low numbers meant they shut it immediately.

We rely on wraparound for breakfast club and ASC and were stuffed. Luckily school stepped in temporarily and office staff and TAs manned ASC (albeit lower numbers and much shorter hours) and quickly went about trying to find a replacement company. We muddled through, getting ASC hours where we could and sharing pick ups with other families affected where we couldn't. Eventually they found another third party company to run it, and now its run for slightly less hours and less services (no food now). They no longer offer holiday club there as numbers are too low for viability.

For the immediate term, try and connect with other families that will be affected. They will likely be a lifeline whilst you all figure out a longer-term plan.

At DH's school (teacher) they have been struggling with lower numbers into the school for several years. ASC cancelled about 2 years ago as they could no longer run at a loss due to very strict budget constraints. They are now making 25% of teachers redundant due to the budget cuts to schools, so its clear the vast majority of schools will be unable to simply carry on operating ASC at a loss anymore. Add to that the difficulty in recruiting TAs and lunchtime supervisors (pay and conditions not attractive) it means its very hard to find staff too.

Are you in the middle of nowhere OP. Can you not travel to the next village?

I am semi rural and looked into child care and companies are advertising, so hardly a shortage. In fact they seem desperate for business.