To get tee'd off with school when they cancel after-school clubs with no notice

[clumsymum]

For the 3rd time this term one of the after-school clubs the ds attends has been cancelled. Secretary rang round this afternoon to tell everyone.

Ok, today it's because one of the 2 teachers who takes it is ill, and the other one (who often takes it on her own) has decided she's too busy. I suspect it's to do with it being SAT's week mind you.

Other weeks we haven't been given any reason. As a self-employed, work from home -but sometimes out to see clients - mum, it's a complete P I T A. It's difficult enough to fit in enough work time as it is. I can't be the only one who finds it awkward.

Surely, if they're going to commit to run a club, they should commit to it properly.

If its a free club run by volunteers then yabu and you should arrange your week so that whilst you might be able to do some of the 'working from home' you wouldn't do the 'visiting clients' in the time of the club.

If however its a contractually based fee paying after school club like I will be using come september, then yanbu because those clubs are run as a business and for children whose parents need extra care till they finish work.

I really don't think it follows that parents are necessarily ungrateful, irresponsible or with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement if they ask for a bit more notice if a club is cancelled where possible.

I think anyone cancelling anything at short notice, whether it is paid for or not, and the change of plans will involve changing other plans of other people has at least to recognise that it can be difficult to respond to immediately.

For example, instead of paying for wrap-around care, we share school pickups a couple of days a week with other parents. If - as we do sometimes - things have to change because something has come up or someone is ill, we give as much notice as possible. If something happened at absolutely the last minute I would not be shirty with my friends, expecting them to be at home just in case, or able to drop things at work just in case. If I couldn't get hold of them or I had to go somewhere urgently instead of looking after their child, I would seek to make alternative arrangements.

Why? Well, one because of a spirit of reciprocity, which the school can't necessarily be expected to have, since it is difficult to see, other than my commitment to helping the school out here and there, how I could reciprocate for them. But second we do it like this because we understand it is reasonable for them to expect that I am occupying and in loco parentis for that child for that hour or two.

The OP was not saying that the clubs shouldn't cancel, nor that she was 'entitled' to do whatever she wanted whenever, but to request a bit more organisation, notice and perhaps a contingency plan.

Nowhere have I (or many of the other posters a far as I can see) suggested parents are ungrateful for the teachers putting on clubs. I don't see how the two are connected tbh.

But there will be a contingency plan - like I said, the school isn't going to chuck the child out in the street, are they?
They will look after them, but doing so is going to be a pain - for example, if it happens at our school, they come into the ICT suite, and as it's normally me that's in there, I will stay late with them, supervising them on the computers until they are picked up, even though I'm meant to be going home.
SO I don't think it's unreasonable for the school to make every effort to try to get the parents to pick them up.

Of course there is a contingency plan, as RustyBear says, but it makes sense for the school to phone around and see which parents can collect rather than have their DC hanging around. If OP was out they would have looked after her DC, however she was in and so her DC didn't have to pass time waiting.

Thandeka, before we accept new children into the club I run at the state school where I work, I now always make it very clear to the parents that a) I am doing this in my own time and b)occasionally there will be times when I have to cancel at short notice, or even, as in the case of when my Dad died, no notice. I tell them that if they are unable to accept this, then we are unable to accept their child into the club. Since we started doing this, there has only been one parent who has insisted on treating us as unpaid childcare. The parent concerned decided that even though I had written to give them a week's notice that on one occasion the club would finish 20 minutes early, she would leave an unpaid volunteer who used to come in especially to help at the club, waiting over an hour after the normal finishing time, because it was 'inconvenient' for her to get there on time that night! The headteacher wrote to her and told her that her child could not attend any after school clubs because this was not the only time she had done this, though it was the worst example.