Has anyone set up a before/after school club on school premises?

[Claireodon]

My dd's school is a small one and is the only school in the local area without a before/after school club. The head says this is because there is no demand but having spoken to quite a few parents at the school gates I think there are other reasons for his reluctance to offer out of school care and many parents do struggle with drop off/pick up times. Local cms are all full (I am a cm). I would like to approach the school about the poss of setting up a club on the premises but haven't the faintest clue how it would work tbh. Could I run it as a childminder with an assistant? Do the school just let you use their premises or do you have to pay them? Is there any money to be made from it in a very small school? If anyone has experience of doing this I would be really grateful for your advice.

Hi I'm a CM too, We have friends who set up a/s provision on a school site, they already have a very large and successful nursery though. From what I remember they had to register the provision with ofsted in its own right their name was on the reg cert, they also had to have seperate insurance cover, planning permission etc as regualtions for clubs are different for schools, so although they were on the school site they were a totally independant entity. The school also asked for "rent" to cover the cost of electric / heat /water, worked out at £80 per day, they also had to take their own resources / equipment and set up and pack away each day. They ran at a loss for some time (as the last people that ran it did) then closed the club. When you add in the cost of staff, ins, rent, registration etc it just wasn't viable.

However if you can find a pro-active school that allows you to use a space - perhaps may have a spare room where you can leave stuff set up- and either lets you use the space free or with a very nominal rent (personally I think £80 a day was well steep, as its only 3-4 hrs max) You may find it viable.

As for reg if you look at section 9 of the ofsted guidance under registration not required you may find you can do a voluntary reg (so you still get URN and therefore tax credit eligibility) rules state you can care for a child over the age of 3yrs for no more than 4hrs in any 1 day. Under the rules the main focus of the club is the activity provided, care is secondary, so you could set up a drama, music, art club.

HTH

Here's a linky fing

www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Forms-and-guidance/Browse-all-by/Other/General/Factsheet-childcare-Reg istration-not-required