Breakfast Club/After School Club - what does your school do?

[flashingnose]

I'm on a committee which is looking at introducing this at our school. For those of you who use these clubs at your school, what makes them good? What do they do? How much does it cost? Do they do different things for Infants and Juniors (we're a combined school)?

Any information gratefully received .

my school run both, breakfast club starts at 8.00am, the children are offered toast I think, don't know how much it costs as we don't use it.

Afterschool is from school ends, and children need to be picked up by 5.50pm, it's £7.50 a night. all of the children go to the hall, they have a snack, and then sit for "chat time" and it's all ages together. then they can choose an activity, and they also build in some outside play too.

DS didn't like breakfast club, but loves afterschool

Our school runs both, however there is a huge waiting list for after school.

B'fast club is £2 per morning per child and runs from 8am. DD is booked into it, and we're paying, but so far we've never used it.

Couldn't get into after school, so she's collected by her prev nursery as they run a club - £7.50 per session runs from school close to 17:45. They do all sorts - ar activities, board games, computer games etc. DD not really enthralled with this.....

Ds is at a small independent school which runs its own Breakfast Club and contracts a local borough provider to run the After-School Club (but using staff from the School so they are familiar faces to the children IYSWIM).

Ds uses both although sometimes only for a few minutes in the morning.

Breakfast Club is £2 per day ad hoc or £8 per week. This includes a full breakfast if wished. It is VERY popular.

After-School Club is quite new and in fact ds was the founder customer and enjoys special status as a result (but no discount ).

It is £10 per night to 6pm, £8 to 5pm, with a small discount for full weeks booked.

If the weather is fine, the children have the run of the playground, with sports equipment such as beanbags, skipping ropes, hoops and lolo balls (those wretched things you bounce on). Children with homework to do can sit in a quiet corner of the school hall or the adjacent activities room. These are the wet weather venues year round.

There are numerous construction toys (Knex, puzzles, lego), art materials (ds usually draws or writes stories or reads). The coordinators will organise activities regularly but also give the children plenty of space to amuse themselves under supervision.

I LOVE our afterschool club. It is on-site - your BIG selling point IMO - and run by people the children and parents already know and trust, because they are playground supervisors during the day. They are both parents themselves and really delightful, kind and non-nonsense types. Through afterschool club ds has got to know children in other years very well, and also the cleaners and caretaker - a good lesson for him in how important people who are not around much during the school day are to the life of the community.
He has made cakes, learnt about penalty shootouts, published comics and come home with bizarre headgear. He is very happy there.

Our council provides after school care for children at our school. It takes place at a primary school about 4 miles from ds's school so kids are picked up by minibus at his school and another one and taken to the 3rd school where the club is.
We pay £ 7.50 per session (3 p.m. till 6 p.m.). It's also open for inservice days but not holidays (he goes to another one then)
They have various games / toys. It takes place in the school hall which means everything has to be tidied away afterwards. (unlike the kids club he goes to during holidays).
It caters for kids in P1-P7 after school and for kids up to age 14 on inservice days.
It is very small though so mixed ages not a problem.
Staff are very friendly and take them to the swing park and into the playground to play football etc. They will also take them to a local cafe for juice occasionally (if there's not many kids there)
I think it's great but it's under utilised (only about 4 kids on a Friday) so am constantly worried that council will close it.

This is all really useful - thank you.

i am a playleader at our Breakfast and After School club, it has only been running for a year and the first year was basically a learning experience for both the parents, the school and the club!!
i really love my job and the children who all come(and came last year)say how much it has improved this year.....basically new chair person on the committee and me being more of a manager-towards the committee/parents and getting more of the things the children want rather than the things the parents think there children want!!!(if that makes sense)
we recently had our unannounced ofsted inspection and it went really well....it isn't officially published yet so can't go into full details but am very pleased.....
remember that you are under "daycare ofsted" not schools as some things are quite different...
shout if you would like any more info, menus/prices/times/policies/procedures
good luck

The breakfast club and after-school club at ds1's school is very popular. There is always a waiting list for the after-school care. The school is in an area where many parents have a low-income so the cost is fairly low - £1 for the 1hr breakfast club (half-price for siblings) and £4 for the 2.5hr after-school club. Ds1 doesn't go but from what I've seen of it they use the school hall as well as an activity room for crafts etc. The infants and juniors are together AFAIK.

At my own dear primary school we had an after school club which I wasn't too keen on, but only because I am a home girl!

It was attached to the school and you got a snack, could play in the playground, read, do arts and crafts, play indoor games etc.

But my wee brother and sister still referred to it as 'after scafters'

As a single mum now though I think they are fantastic things! And I expect when dd goes she will be attending.

So what would you say are the key things that make the difference between the good ones and the bad? How are the good ones funded and run? Is it a business or a not for profit organisation run through the school?

All very confusing...

Breakfast club is 50p, starts at 7.30am, you don't have to book just turn up and pay. Huge variety of choice for breakfast always includes something hot. Organised games for the smaller children, lots of board games and books when the weather is bad.

Playcentre is £5 until 6pm, on site, separate area for the nursery and reception children, lots of the staff work in the school during the day. Reasonable snack, sandwuches, fruit and juice given, loads of different activities and trips out sometimes. DS2 likes it better than me apparently.

So how on earth do we get started - does anyone know any good resources on the web?

bump

anyone?

I don't know really. I think you need premises, near or in the school, you need staff, at least 3?? Activities, etc. The main would be to work out a budget, how many kids would you need, would you get that many, etc?

What I would do is go and visit some other after school clubs and get advice there...

Get in touch with your local sure start/Childrens information service as they will be able to give you all the info.
Start now for a planned opening of next september at the earliest.

Seriously ?? Does it really take that long? What takes the time, in your experience?

the hiring of staff, crb checks, enhanced checks for staff can sometimes take longer,ofsted registration,applying for grants,have you done any market research with the needs of parents in your school(hard copies would be needed when applying for some grants)
sorting out insurance,payroll....
where are you based?

We're in Bucks. We've done the research and there's a great deal of support for the idea, which is great. But I think some parents reckon it'll be opening tomorrow! Head has told me that grants should be available.

Where are you chatee? Have you had an Ofsted inspection yet?

cumbria,and yes we had our first unannounced ofsted inspection about 2 weeks ago....

shamelessly bumping this as I've seen katymac's online

I sent my son to an afterschool club! The worse thing i could have done (personnely). My son has ADHD and Aspergers which i explained to the manager at the afterschool club. She said she had no problems at all with this and he would be happy here. When i went to pick him up he was in a terrible state. When he ran off to go on the slide again - the lady chased after him and with gritted teeth said 'DO YOU WANT ME TO TELL YOUR MOTHER WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TOO!' He was so upset because he didn't think he'd done anything wrong. They made him sit on a chair for an hour telling him he had to sit still. If anyone knows a child with ADHD they can't sit still! Anyway, had better stop here because it is still a very touchy subject. He has never been in one before and it was only for 2 days a week and just for a month. When i asked for my money back they said no we don't do refunds!

I must explain that the club i sent my son to didn't have anything to do with his school. I did tell his school the next day and they were shocked that the club had behaved like this. They have started doing a lot more things after school at his school now which i have signed him up to and he loves them. Much happier boy!

I work in a after school club and we try our best to make it interesting for the children.We have arts craft ,cooking and sport .The children are allowed to take part in any ativity as it is free play..When their parents come to collect them the children dont want to go home as they are having a good time.I think its a good idea as they socialise with each other and learn from play.We do our best for them and it helps working parents as wo dont close untill 6.15pm.