No hourly rate for after school club

[Mackonadragos]

Hello everyone,

We are new to Oxfordshire, and I have just found out that I can only book an entire after school club session per day in our primary school. As opposed to book let's say an hour per day. Our school charges £13 per session and it runs between 3 and 6. I would need only 1 hour per day, between 3 and 4. I looked around nearby schools in town, and it seems that it is the common practice here, except one primary (further away), that has got short and long sessions with different rate (£7 and £ 12.95).

We've moved from Bedfordshire, where in our old school we could pay hourly rate and could book one hour per day if we wanted.

I am very annoyed by this, that I would need to pay for something that I will not use.

I am going to raise this with the headteacher, but curious to see how other people think about it. In my opinion it is very inflexible.

Thank you for your answers.

In what way does it make it impossible to get back to work? There is after-school provision; if it’s open until 6 that gives you time to leave work at 5 and collect DC (depending on your commute) - what is the issue?

It’s a flat fee here as well (Yorkshire). The ASC is run on the school site but is run by a private company, which seems to be the usual set-up for most ASC.

My SIL lives in the SE and the ASC she used charged by the hour, which was the first time I’d heard of hourly charges. Always felt I was getting a better deal with my £11 per session compared to her £8 per hour!

Why can't you pay for the ASC and collect your kids at closing time? Or is it that it's then uneconomic for you to return to work?

😉It would be a niche job. I can picture myself walking home with 20 "from 3 to 4" children.

Surely if you just use the asc and pay up until 6 even if you collect earlier, you will be better off financially? If you're not currently working and haven't for ten years, whilst it is quite a cost if you're going back into work then you'd be better off?
I only use our ASC on an ad hoc basis but know they wouldn't allow older siblings to collect the children

The issue is here, that I am about to start a badly paid job (warehouse, that I have never done before) and I will work for an entire day for childcare which I do not wish to use.

When you're actually old enough...

Flat fee here as well, sorry OP.

Yes. I will do a boring and low paid job (and I am even grateful for getting that job) and I will work one whole day for covering childcare. I'm on the verge of unemployability (despite being reasonably schooled, but a totally unsuccessful carrier).

I have never heard of an after school club that offers an hourly rate - I think it would have to be a very high rate to break even. These provisions are barely profitable and already struggle to attract staff.

"I wonder how many of you have teenage children. "

Whilst obviously there is continually a large proportion of Mn posters with newborns and young ones, many of us have been here for 20 years, have uni children and young adults.

Surely you know that?

Are you claiming any benefits you may be entitled to such as help with childcare?

I have no teenaged children.

My youngest is 21 😂😂😂😂

I am talking about 30 minutes - up to 1 hour per day. Not long hours.

Good. Than you know what they are at the age of 13-14. Surely they are independent and even have some responsibilities.

No. We never claimed anything, as I have a husband, and I never worked so we would not have been entitled. now, that I start or want to start to work I might claim, we haven't looked into it yet.

(And that husband of mine works in London, and comes home late.)

Oh I miss being able to have a 3-6 session, our school does 2 separate hours but if the second hour isn't sufficiently full they cancel it which is SO inconvenient and stressful.

East Cheshire here, £11 for after school to 6 however long you are there. As PP’s have said, your child for 1 hour would take the same resource as a child for the full period. They’re not going to get staff for just 1 hour 3-4.

Going to buck the trend here. I managed an after school club up until I retired 3 years ago. We operated on 3 sessions per afternoon and it worked just fine. Flexibility for parents. We always kept to strict ratios but saved on staffing costs if vast numbers of children only needed one session and suited staff who didn't want to work till 6pm.
It's still run that way now.

Our after school club has the same policy. Would I rather just pay an hourly rate? Yes, of course. But it's the most convenient option for us and we're thankful to have a space so unfortunately that's it. And it does give us flexibility for an extra hour of childcare if and when we need it.

As it is a childcare section, I assumed that it is parents who have children that still need childcare. (I myself "graduated" from the pregnancy / child birth groups, and don't tend to visit it.)

£13 fir childcare a day sounds fab cost

yes I know you don’t need 3hrs but maybe in that time do something can’t do easily with kids, or food shopping, gym, watch tv and chill and use the 3 hrs if paying fir it

to make asc work they need a steady income and if lots of parents wanted one hour say fir £5 then wouldn’t make any money

You take up the whole slot at the session regardless of what time you pick up. Staff still need to be paid as well. A full session fee is fair.

God! This sounds great! (I linked our old school, where there were also 3 sessions.)

Thank you for sharing it.

My DC school also have 3 sessions: Early (straight from school to 4.30); late (from 4.30 to end); and full (all the way through).

It works because school clubs all finish at 4.30, so they probably have enough kids leaving early and being replaced by lates to make the ratios work. Many parents would rather pay for a club (art, sports etc) than ASC, which is a bit more generic in terms of activities but most clubs are oversubscribed.

I'm in Oxfordshire and my ASC does it per hour, some of the staff just don't work until the end which suits them I think.

however, they don't let anyone under 16 collect children so your 13yo wouldn't be able to do that bit. In addition, to put that onto a 13yo EVERY day is a huge responsibility and would mean they could never do any after stuff themselves. I have a Y10 and a Y8 as well as the Y5, and both the older ones do sports clubs and go home with mates after school. Outside of emergencies or organised one offs I don't expect them to look after the younger one, they are not the parent