Lack of extra-curricular activities at school

[underboardwalk]

I could do with your advice as I'm umming and ahhhing about whether to send in an email to my daughter's school. I will provide some context first.

I'm a class PTA rep, so I tend to do all the vocal work for my daughter's Reception class. She attends an 'outstanding' school, which is always oversubscribed, and it's generally a very good school. What's really, really lacking is the provision of extra-curricular activities/after school clubs. They have an external provider for their breakfast/after-school club, and an external sports club who provides limited classes - boys and girls football and multi-sports for Y1 upwards. And that's it. I assume they use their external after school provider as an umbrella for various activities, but in my opinion, that's not good enough.

There is absolutely no provision for reception year group. I know it's the summer term now and it's too late to get something in place, but the distinct lack of well-rounded extra-curricular activities is absolutely irking me.

I've done my research into other local schools in the area and their choice of activities is fantastic. Some have external providers for their BC/ASC and some sports clubs, AND also offer a wider range of activities in addition which include provision for reception children such as performing arts, ballet, gymnastics, Spanish, maths clubs, art clubs, etc. The list goes on.

Funnily enough, I saw a FB post over the weekend asking about extra-curricular activities from a parent whose child has been accepted into the school, and as much as I wanted to shout how bad their provision is, I stayed quiet.

Obviously I'm not going to pull my daughter out of the school, I love it for her and so does she. But I suppose, naively, I never thought of this element of her education and thought the after school club will be enough.

Should I put my head about the parapet and send an enquiry as to why there is such a lack of activities? Or am I just being a pain? I just feel that they know they're such a good school in terms of academic achievements, that they've overlooked this part. I also have other major irks with them - their website is lacking in information and really dull, and I feel it links back to them probably being arrogant enough that they feel they don't need to update it. I feel there are a whole load of things lacking in that school that could be improved easily enough. I want to bring it up with them but I don't want to be 'that woman' who complains!

Having run after school clubs until 4pm or so as an external provider it really isn’t an issue. I ran them by myself or with a colleague, obvs with a DBS. Of course leaving at 4pm plenty of others were still in the building in case of emergency.

I think this just works differently in different schools.

At my sons' school this just isn't an issue. There are no staff being asked to work additional hours for extra curriculars.

There is always a designated safeguarding lead on site when the site is open for children which is between 7:30 am and 6:30pm for wraparound.

Obviously any clubs are well within those hours so no one extra needs to stay.

The office is open till 5pm as standard so any admin issues for the club staff are dealt with by them.

It does take a bit of admin time to organise the clubs and keep track of who is going to what but the club organisers pay rent and that more than covers that.

I am a school governor so I have all the relevant facts.

Who sends out the letters ?
who collects the money ?
who does the risk assessment ?
who organises the dbs ?

How about you research some providers op, do the costings and suggest to school

it all happens by magic! No teacher has to spend any time on it at all! never mind an hour a week, which the Op seems to think we all have spare, somewhere

if you have after school clubs, fantastic. You are incredibly lucky. I have run them in the past, voluntarily, at huge personal sacrifice. it isn't just that hour, it is the hour of planning, the booking the rooms, the admin, the RA, the other staff that need to be contactable, etc etc etc.

It is an incredible gift from a member of the teaching staff to the students. No one has any entitlement to it. There is a ridiculous attitude of entitlement on this thread - which makes staff far less likely to volunteer for these things.

The OP seems mostly concerned with her transport arrangements, rather than enrichment for her kid anyway.

I'm not sure that's true. We have an external karate club at our school that runs without any school staff present. And the hall is available for parties at the weekend; again no staff would be around for that.

Who lets them in ? Who locks up ? Who checked their dbs and risk assessments ?
Hiring a hall privately at weekends does not count and neither does a private club but an extension of the school day is different.

@noshadowatnoon I'm not at all concerned with transport arrangements, I brought it up in reply to previous posters. Have you completely missed what I've been saying? I transport my daughter around to her after school clubs 3 times a week, leaving work early to do so in order to enrich my child's life by taking her to these clubs.

My original query relates to whether I should ask the school the question. I'm not being entitled, and again, don't expect teachers to stay late or volunteer to run these clubs (never ever said this). I want to know, given they're a 3 form entry with plenty of space, why their after school provision is so limited, given that it'd be no cost to them to let external providers use their facilities/rooms to do science clubs, art clubs, chess, ballet, performing arts, whatever the hell there might be to offer.

Thank you for those posters who understand my query and my rationale.

Exactly my point!! Thank you!!

Site staff need to open and close up. They need paying and have set working hours.

Again, totally missing the point. Why bother even typing when you're not actively contributing to the original query?

Maybe we can offer some improvements to your manners?

yes, you said how much you ferry your child around, and how much more convenient it would be if all these outside activities she does could be done at her school instead of involving you in transporting her - so you want someone else to take her to where ever in school, and cant see what an imposition this is, and how much it takes out of school staff, and that the hour of the activity itself is the least of it, but it would be more convieniant for you if someone else did it instead of you

You could ask. We can all speculate until the cows come home, but until you've asked, you won't know.

I'd bet on something like insurance. Or having previously run clubs and not enough take up so private providers won't make a profit so don't use the hall. It could be part of a bonkers clause in a land lease somewhere. It could be because the HT has been burned before with an incident on ASC and doesn't want the risk/responsiblity.

But until you've asked, you won't know.

no, you are missing the point.

You are showing such a priviledged and entitled attitude, and can't seem to take on board what you are being told.

Schools are not obliged to do any of this stuff. it is lovely when they do, but it is not any sort of entitlement. Your school offers plenty already, sport and wrap around care.

You dont seem to see that whatever else is done, whether it is by outside providers or not, will impinge heavily on school staff, who may simply not be in a position to volunteer for this, even if they want to.

You still have not given any indication that you would be prepared to be there to facilitate another activity

My DDs went to a naice village school and there were a wide variety of clubs every week, these clubs fed into ASC. Some of these clubs were run by teachers, but the majority set up by outside providers.

But the school site is already open during the hours the OP is talking about because the after school club is there.

You've already said an external provider provides afterschool care.

Why would a sports provider try to tap into the same market?
If they hold their club at 4pm in a church hall or similar it's probably cheaper rent and they'll have a bigger pool of kids to pool from maybe 3 or 4 primaries within the vicinity.

Does the school have space for both an ASC and sports clubs?

Parents who want to pay for sports clubs will do so regardless of where they are held

There is always a possibility they had clubs and there wasn't sufficient uptake. Or there was too much uptake and it threatened the viability of the after school wraparound. Or the providers trashed the school field / hall / equipment.

It does require input from school staff, there will always be kids in the wrong place or their parents think it is football on Thursday and actually it is Tuesday.

You could ask if there is a reason they don't have external providers in, not in an accusatory way, but the answer might be bad experiences in the past.

As your husband is a head teacher, why don’t you ask him? He will have more than enough knowledge to be able to answer you, and you can presumably trust him more than you can anonymous randoms on MN

It could be the cleaners contracts are to clean at a certain time, therefore the halls cannot be used after school.

It could be the MAT doesn't do ASC as a MAT policy.

They might have a contract with the current ASC provider that they are the only one allowed in the building.

Ime, kids in reception get so knackered by a normal school day that they wouldn’t be in a position to really benefit from making the day at school any longer.

Parents know their kids best, and if they think they can cope with more then they’re free to book activities away from the school.

i wouldn’t see it as a negative that your dc’s school don’t offer any extra curricular activities to reception aged children. You clearly do. As it’s so important to you it’s a shame that you didn’t look into this before making your application and accepting their place.

I think if outside providers can be found it is incredibly enriching to the school community and am so thankful my DCs school thought so too.

Ime, kids in reception get so knackered by a normal school day that they wouldn’t be in a position to really benefit from making the day at school any longer.

I agree with this but from Year 2/3 it is briliant.

Perhaps the reason there are no private providers could be to do with hire charges. Also many schools are iffy about other children from other schools attending clubs at their school. This means the pool of potential clients is within the school. At their own premises they can take clients from wherever.

A dance teacher for example usually works for a dance school, the dance school has premises already so isn't going to hire a school hall out. Ditto with performing arts places/ karate/judo ect. Most football clubs hire either the football field of the football club or have a pitch they rent. Many music teachers WFH and so don't need to hire a place. As a PP has said, by the time you have paid hire fees, you need to be charging each child enough to cover a wage, insurance ect. Then there are the non layers, who covers this? The school or the business? If you have a premises already, the insurance is in place, there is no transport cost, no moving equipment about as it's all at the premises. It's easier to run from your own premises.

Many schools with all these clubs are usually signed up to some LA scheme where coaches/ music/ drama teachers come into school to do these sessions. The employees are LA employees not private businesses. Perhaps you could explore if the school is open to buying into the local LA scheme. I think there are "packages" as some schools have PE lessons only taken by coaches, others seem to have P.E lessons and some after school clubs. Some have PE lessons, music lessons and ASC/ holiday clubs.

Absolutely. They’re much more able to cope with longer days by then.