Extended Services - the reality?

[MrsHyde]

Mumsnet has ads about extended services so I thought I'd check out what is supposed to be available. I have a daughter in primary school and work 3 days per week. Her school has no 'before school' facilities, and an after school club which runs until 5:30 and does not provide any food. They do not run a holiday club.

The DirectGov pages say:

"By 2010, all schools will provide a full range of services - some will be free but others, like childcare, will be charged for.

Primary schools that are fully extended are required to provide access to childcare and a range of activities from 8.00 am to 6.00 pm, five days a week, 48 weeks of the year."

This is patently untrue. The school is really good in all other aspects, in the top 500 state schools in the country. They have absolutely no plans to extend their services any further.

Does anyone know what are the actual legal requirements being placed on schools to provide these services and how can I lobby/force/persuade them to do what they are supposed to be doing? I don't mind paying for these services but they simply don't exist.

OPh and even more annoyed now - I just looked up her school on the DirectGov site and it says it has a full range of extended services - also completely untrue!! If they can claiom they are complying on the government website when they are not, who is checking?

Extended schools also means working in liasion with other extended providers e.g. Childminders, so you might find that they haven't enough demand to make it financially viable to keep open to 6 pm but can suggest a childminder who would do later hours along with after school pick ups.

They do not have to offer it if it available elsewhere ie childminders, or another school within a few miles.They also can do a survey and if this shows there is not currently a need then they are covered.

The junior school I work at is 'fully extended, but the childcare isn't on it's premises - the after school club & holiday provision is at the sports centre next door, and the breakfast club is at the Catholic primary school a few hundred yards away - there are walking buses between our school & the other locations.
We do have a 'wide range of activities' after school and some before, some of which are free, some are not.
We have done surveys to find out if there was a demand for a breakfast club actually at our school & there was very little response & in fact only 2 children regularly use the shared breakfast club - the after school club averages about 10 from us plus about 7-8 from the linked infant school - total number of pupils at both schools is around 330.
If your school doesn't offer care on the premises, they should be able to tell you where to find it.

LA's do a sufficiency audit, they basically ask all childcare providers within the LA to fill in a questionnaire stating how many vacancies / places taken they have on a given day.

Tis a bit of a joke really as a quiet day for me (CM) is about 10 mindees a busy one 15. So a huge discrepancy if you multiply the difference over all providers. Also schools are encouraged to offer clubs but are reluctant to do so as a) the reg requirements are different b) staffing and c)costs them money from school budget. So outsourcing is the way to go for many.

Hi,

I checked this out at the start of the week as my school offers no before or after school care at all. My county council replied (very quickly) and said extended care covers school clubs but also childminders etc. As long as the school provides a link to a list of childminders or a list of after school clubs (elsewhere) they are complying. So even though no childminders pick up at this school and to get to the listed club you would have to come home and take your child that's OK!!
Bascially having got to the end of the line with nannies I am putting my kids into Independent schools so that I can work effectiviely myself!!
So - IMO - this is all just guff!