Prep school offering 6am - 8pm, 51 weeks. How quickly is that going to become common then?

[EBDteacher]

I've just been reading an article in a local 'services for kids' type magazine about at prep school in the area that is going to offer fully integrated care from 8am-6pm 51 weeks of the year, with optional sessions 6am-8am and 6pm-8pm! It's going to be charged monthly at £500pcm (for the whole lot- not just the wraparound) like nursery fees.

The school terms are also going to be different to the state sector so parents can take family holidays outside peak times.

Wouldn't suit us as DH and I are both teachers but I can see it appealing to lots of working families. If a few schools start offering services like that how long before they all will?

It isn't except it is being offered by an independent school which traditionally has short terms and long holidays

I was being flippant, to a certain extent.

However, I do wonder about the commitment to family life of couples where both work full time simply to afford a posh house, two smart cars and private school fees.

Yes I'm a SAHM by accident rather than design, and having no childcare at the DDs school at all, have ended up stuck being one.

So my DDs are stuck with their state school except for one week a year when they go to the private schools excellent play scheme.

In truth I think everyone would love there to be affordable 8am-6pm child care available, all year.

Wise people also know that there is no substitute for decent flexible working, part time hours and decent holidays if we want to raise happy children with parents in happy and secure partnerships.

FWIW I was a shipped out child - on the plane to grandparents at the end of term in mid July and back in mid September (flying on my own from the age of 4) and spent weekends and short holidays with family and friends as Mum did not get paid holidays

and that is why I am NOT in favour of it - it was done to me after all...
I always knew that I came second place to work (and social life) when I was away

You can't just take the kids out when you fancy - they do 38 weeks over 4 FIXED terms and offer wrap round care and holiday cover for a fixed price. The advantage is that it sounds like THEIR holidays will not coincide totally with normal school holidays - meaning you can get a cheaper deal.

They are NOT saying that you have to send your child there 8- 6, 51 weeks a year - Just they are offering clubs/childcare over that period - presumably closed at Xmas. God so many MNetters bemoan not being able to find a job as they are tied to school hours - someone offers a flexible solution and they get criticised!

As I said earlier - the Belgian state offers similar cover. It is much cheaper and starts from 2.5 yo. My dd is in school 8.15 to about 5pm and does her homework there, then plays with her friends. Holiday club is about 35 euros per week and covers all but one week of the holidays.

Am I reading it right that you can drop your child of at six and pick them up at eight?

Looking at it, I'm not sure the £500 per month is from 6m to 8pm - it says "Fees include care from 8am-6pm with a core school day of 8.45am - 3.45pm. Optional extended hours of 6am-8pm available upon request." so I think you could well be paying quite a bit more if they need to be there between 6am and 8am and/or 6pm-8pm.

My DC use the out of school club next to school on an irregular basis due to my irregular work hours and it would sometimes be good for me if it opened a bit earlier. 6am might be pushing it a little though.

Sorry I think six is too early for a child to be up and out. I think there will be some parents that would leave their children here for twelve hour days how sad.

To me its far sadder if a parent can't get a job because they can't afford childcare.

School hours and inset days and holidays are a nightmare for working parents.

Loads and loads and loads of people don't work, even though they want to, because childcare is impossible to find, or too expensive.

That is sad.

Oh yes, don't talk to me about blinking inset days and our HT's fondness for telling us about them with 2 weeks notice and in a tiny little paragraph on the school newsletter.

The way I read it is that parents can avail themselves of the care on offer, not that they have to.

That said, presumably you have to give advance notice of which sessions you want, which wouldn't help with unpredicatble working hours and it won't help with ill DC. A nanny is still much more flexible.

Very interesting marketing.

Interesting to see if it is workable - my DD goes to a similar school and that package (fees, lunch, before/aftercare/holiday care) would cost approx £780 a month and we are up north.

I think alot of people assume fees are higher - I was suprised when we looked into it and found fees were alot less than a full time nursery place.

Yes, I don't think there's anything exceptional about a private school offering those kind of hours.

The only thing exceptional is being able to do so for 6k a year.

Given that a state school is given approx 4.5k per child per year, and has 30 kids in a class, can this school survive on 6k per child with 20 in a class?

And more importantly - if they can, how?
Or rather, if they can, is there anything state schools can learn from them?

It seems to be growing out of the same hours being offered in the nursery - so perhaps they already have a pool of parent who they know would be interested in those hours (as their work/life pattern will already be set up around that provision), who will just see it as a continuation of nursery with added lessons certain weeks?

I can actually see this working quite well, certainly in KS1.

I notice that the day nursery places (0-5yrs) at that school are £1k pcm.

Perhaps the day nursery fees will subsidise the school places? I'm not sure why a school would do that- why not just run the day nursery? Although with it being catholic perhaps it's not about the money. Maybe the wraparound care that the school are going to offer 5-11 year olds will be financially streamlined by economies of scale alongside the day care.

When schools like this offer wraparound care and holidays, who looks after the children on inset days and half-terms? Do they have ad-hoc staff who are available? It's not regular hours and the people I know who do early/late care have other jobs during the day.

I've been reading this thread with a growing feeling of sadnessI think there will come a time when memories of lazy chilled out after school time spent with friends or taking a picnic to the local lido, riding bikes, sitting under a tree with a wonderful book and all the other lovely things children used to do on a daily basis, will be so far pushed into the past as to be thought of as a myth.

This is institutionalised care for children and one wonder's why anyone would want the majority of their children's waking time to be spent in the care of a school.

How many children of this generation will feel likeTalkingPeace2 in 20/30 years time will be the proof of this pudding

How I agree Redlow about the early hour and children will have to be up and out really early to be at school at 6.00am.

sunshinenanny
:-)
I was unusual then as I had a single mum who worked full time.
I do wonder about the long term self esteem of children whose parents have chosen to be time poor.
And yes, kids need time to just zone out.
Last week when DH was away and I had work to do mine did cartwheels and stuff in the garden for nearly two hours.

I genuinely do not believe that if parents really WANTED to they could not spend more time with their children - but the perceived pressure is so much on parents to work full time to cover the costs of stupidly large mortgages and private school fees, that they do not have the time to step back and see how short termist it all is.

For those who think this scheme is a great idea -
what are your happiest memories of your childhood?
do they involve day care / school - or - time with families ?

and I will deliberately exclude American style summer camp as that is a much more positive approach

What would you suggest I do instead of working full-time? Who will pay the bills and keep a roof over our heads if I gave up my job? And before anyone tells me that it was my lifestyle choice to have children, I didn't factor in an ex-husband who turned out to be an alcoholic. So frankly, I find some of the views on this thread frankly offensive.

I spend as much time with my children as I can. Right now they are turning cartwheels in the garden as I worked from home today. Tomorrow I shall drop them off at their breakfast club at 8am and I shall drive to a meeting 150 miles away. Perhaps some of you think I am a selfish parent, but I certainly don't see it that way. I hope my children will grow up seeing that I worked as hard as I possibly could to secure a financially secure future for them after their father destroyed his life. I hope some of you smug posters have nothing like that happen to you.

I imagine that lots of schools will get on board in order to remain competitive. I think it's a terribly sad state of affairs as I'm sure there will be plenty of children that are dropped off at 6am and left there until 8pm.

Fantastic. Now children really can fit into their parent's lives with practically no impact at all. And think what you'd save on the maid's wages- the house would never get dirty or untidy. And I'm sure granny would love to have them for that inconvenient week....

As was always ever the case, nannies up and down the land will testify.

the school is not offering lessons from 6am-8pm, sunshinenanny.

I was (in later years, admittedly, as that was when my mum needed the 'childcare' and was unable to collect me from school any earlier due to her job) at school from 7.30am until 9pm on some days.

I joined the boarders for breakfast, had time to finish any last minute homework/use the library etc before lessons started at 8.40 (well, form time, assembly etc).

after school (lessons finished at 4pm), I had loads of chill out time with my friends. we could:

swim, row, abseil, horseride, rockclimb, use the art/photography room facilities, use the library/computer rooms (if necessary for work) or just ramble around the grounds (extensive). there were dogs to walk (housemistress' pets), clubs to attend (in an umimaginable range of subjects), tv to watch - or just loafing to be done.

at my prep school, I was there from 8am until 6pm as a standard day - no option but to attend these times. again, lots of facilities and it was not constant lessons. at certain times of the year (school play times, major projects or scholarships to study for) I would be there later for a finite period of time.

as other posters have said, it is unlikely that any parents would use this to it's fullest extent - 6am-8pm 51 weeks a year. but it will be useful to many, at varying points.

I remember my summer holidays at h

I remember my summer holidays at home as boring.

Same as after school really.

My kids prefer term time to school holidays. School nowadays is so much fun.