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Parenting

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Original poster

What do parents do with children after school

31 replies

HungryandIknowit · 03/03/2023 21:33

This is probably a stupid question but our local school does not have an after school club. There is one childminder locally who does pick ups from the school. She is fully booked for the foreseeable. What are the other options - after school nanny? Am I missing something?

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

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BeeBB · 03/03/2023 21:51

Choose a school that provides wrap around care. Do your research about this before choosing schools.

Collect the children yourself.

Adjust/cut your hours at work.

Ask other people to assist you with collecting your children. (Partner, family, other parents, friends etc).

Contact the school and ask about the possibility of them setting up wrap around care.

Original poster

HungryandIknowit · 03/03/2023 21:56

The last one is exactly the sort of thing I hadn't thought of but is brilliant, thanks.

OP posts:

BeeBB · 03/03/2023 22:42

I was fortunate to be able to work part time mainly school hours and the school had a good cheap wrap around care system in place which I booked and paid for one day a week to give me some flexibility work wise (but I didn’t always need to use it).

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Beachhutnut · 03/03/2023 22:54

I work part time, so basically when the kids are in school. Some friends do after school club or have relatives mind them. Some nights school have a club on that extends pick up by an hour. A mix bag.

Smartiepants79 · 03/03/2023 22:58

Have you asked school? It’s very unusual for a school to have no options for after school care even if they don’t run one themselves.

Rainsdropskeepfalling · 03/03/2023 23:03

Firstly taxi to an after school club somewhere else. Then moved and appealed for a place at a school where there was a club.

Around here all clubs are privately run, not provided by the school. And they need to be financially viable so after lockdown ours struggled as some parents worked from home and could do this for the last few hours with kids at home I guess.

BishBashBoop · 03/03/2023 23:04

Have you checked the local nurseries? The nurseries in my area all do an after school club where they will come and collect your child from school and keep them until 6pm

WeCome1 · 03/03/2023 23:08

How sure are you that there’s only one childminder? Is it worth asking on local Facebook groups if anyone else does wrap around?

arethereanyleftatall · 03/03/2023 23:09

Become a child minder

Binfluencer · 03/03/2023 23:10

If you have a partner he can reduce/cut his hours to accommodate pick ups

Danikm151 · 03/03/2023 23:11

My son’s nursery does after school pickup until aged 11. Ask local nurseries near you if they do.

Original poster

HungryandIknowit · 04/03/2023 07:02

We haven't asked school yet - are going by their website. They are a tiny school though. Pretty sure only 1 childminder but Facebook is a good shout. The nursery idea is also a good one, thanks!

OP posts:

Thisisthewaywe · 04/03/2023 07:07

I’m never sure whether some replies are intended to be sarcastic and to make the OP realise how terrible a person they are for … what, not knowing this, not being available to pick their children up, who knows?

Our local school is also tiny and we don’t have childminders available - in any case I’m not massively keen on the childminder setup, so it will influence our school choices and may have to look at private.

Theelephantinthecastle · 04/03/2023 07:28

If there are genuinely no options, I would probably try to get into a school that does have wraparound even if that means moving house . I know I will be scoffed at for saying this but we did bear this in mind when choosing where we lived and we would not live somewhere with no options for after school care.

But obviously it depends on what's important to you, how your jobs work, what you can afford, etc

QforCucumber · 04/03/2023 07:38

Ds1 school is exactly the same, single year intake - 2 childminders and no ask when he started a couple of years ago.

since then another local school (bigger) has offered our their asc to do collections and a ‘walking bus’ to their site (about a quarter of a mile) and charge £1 a day more than they would for students of their own school - it’s been a huge hit.

ds actually goes to one of the childminders as she lives a few doors down from us but would likely have chosen the asc if he had been available when he started there

Dammitthisisshit · 04/03/2023 07:48

other things:
request flexible working if this is possible in job- eg one parent works 6:30-3 and does school pick-up, other 9-5:30 and does school drop. Or you both do 2 long and 2 short days and parent on short day does school runs. or both request 80% hours (pay cut but as you’re taxed more heavily on higher parts if earnings it’s not a 20% reduction in pay).

Befriend other working parents, request flexible working for one or 2 days. On those days collect other children and they collect yours the rest of the week.

feelingrubbish2023 · 04/03/2023 08:00

I think this is one of the reasons why some parents choose private schools (if they can afford it) my dcs school had breakfast club 7.30 til start of school and asc til 6pm, you could pay daily like £5 a session or pay £100 per term for all the sessions. They also ran holiday clubs to bring the private school holidays in line with the state schools. It was £100 per week.

There was a couple of dc in dd's class who chose the school purely because of this.

I know school isn't childcare but I think the government should be putting money into wraparound care schemes to allow more women (let's face it, it's always women) to be able to work.

2reefsin30knots · 04/03/2023 08:02

If the school is in an area with so little after school care, they are likely to already have been asked many times about after school care. It must be a deliberate decision not to have it so I doubt 'asking them to set up a club' is going to work.

We used a prep school with longer hours for everyone (8-4 in pre-prep then 8-5.10pm from Y3). I worked shorter hours in pre-prep to be able to pick up at 4pm, but since Y3 have been able to work full time using just the core hours.

JamMakingWannaBe · 04/03/2023 08:09

I would suggest that no after-school club is also likely to mean no holiday club. You need to look into local provision of holiday childcare too.

MojoJojo71 · 04/03/2023 08:16

This is one of the reasons I chose a private school for DD. Her school is local, reasonably priced and wrap around care is included in her fees. When I looked into it sending her to the breakfast club and after school club at the local state schools was going to cost me at least £75 a week.

PotKettel · 04/03/2023 08:16

Share your pain op. We moved house to a location with two large primaries that had breakfast and after school clubs. Then LA built a new school due to ludicrous amount of local house building, shifted all the catchments and the new school wasn’t full so no private company would do wrap around . And of course catchments were shifted around and our catchment school was the new one!

So moving doesn’t always work.

I would waitlist for a school that does have wrap around and move dc. Meantime you and dp beg your dad employers for some flexibility while you sort the problem. Maybe try and get in touch with other parents at the school as you won’t be the only one in this situation. You might be able to share the burden - 3 families together could probably manage, if there were 6 parents working, with to have the 3 kids one day or two afternoons a week each. Plus instant friends for the kids!

ATisketATasket · 04/03/2023 08:19

It is worth asking the school. My DC school has about 100 kids. No breakfast or after school provision and 2 childminders that cover it. No schools within sensible commute run a breakfast club around here, other than the Roman Catholic school which wasn't for us.
Anyway I approached the school, they put out feelers for interest and a year later it's up and running. So always worth an ask.

Highflow · 04/03/2023 08:22

Our tiny village school started out with no wrap around care when we started there, but we loved the school so went with it.
After several request from many parents they started breakfast club first of all, then a couple of years later started after school wrap around either till 4:15 or 5:15.
it did take along time for them to set up.
Worth talking to the head to see if it is a possibility.
I was fortunate (!) enough to be able to change my shifts from days to nights so I will sleep during school hours then get up to collect them from school. Just couldn’t do 2 shifts in a row due to not enough sleep… although now I can as they can stay in wrap around longer

ForestOfDave · 04/03/2023 08:22

We approached the after school club of another school a couple of miles away. They agreed to offer provision only for a full car load of children so their employment of an extra childcarer for us became profitable for them. It cost us £20 per day per child and we had to commit to 4 days per week (no Friday provision) but it was the only show in town for us. There were 4 kids in total who used it (that was the car full!).

I had tried to set up a club at my DS's school but the head teacher blocked it at every turn, citing it wasn't in the best interests of the children. I happen to think that parents holding down a job to provide for their kids is in their best interests, as is having positive female role models, but what do I know, eh?!

MyLittlePonyWellies · 04/03/2023 08:27

Use your local council website to look for other childminders. There may be more in the area who you can't see on FB.

Ask if there's another ASC connected to the school. A local school in my town doesn't have ASC but they run a pick up service so kids get collected and walked over to a nearby leisure centre where there is an ASC.

If you can't get childcare, you could put yourself on a waitlist with the one and only childminder (if she really is the one and only) and ask your work to bear with you while the waitlist clears.

I'm about to start a new job and we are doing a mix of ASC, me doing early starts and early finishes and DH WFH and collecting them.

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