Primary school and wrap around care

[hourbyhour101]

So we got our first choice re schools but it seems they don't seem to offer much wrap around care (they do clubs after school but limited to two a week and no breakfast club) they stop at 5pm.

This was similar to other schools we viewed (maybe it's just a thing in our area). But how do people manage this working FT ? Nanny's are expensive per hour (£15+) and don't tend to let you do short slots (can't blame them on that) and I believe they are self employed and that in its self seems to be a bit of a nightmare.

How do people work this ? Am I missing a trick here. All my family work or live abroad so family help is unlikely ? Partner does long hours and so do I and short of cutting out hours down I don't know how we are gonna handle this.

My Dd is in nursery and I didn't even think this would be such a issue !

All the schools around here provide wraparound care from 8 am to 6pm (some from 7:30am), and the larger schools run holiday clubs (8am to 5:30pm or 6 which are open to children from any school.

I genuinely don't know how we would all manage otherwise.

I’d be screwed without it. We’re not at a big school but have until 6 covered. You might have to look at trying to get a nanny/nanny share but it is harder to recruit after school nannies because of the reduced hours.

Can you flex your hours at all?

It has been a big problem in our area - I was shocked with the poor provision in my area when DC1 started reception a few years ago. I was very lucky to find a childminder who could pick up 2 days a week and to have DGPs who could do two days as well, but many parents had to drop their hours as they had no other option.

Its since improved a lot and now we have two after school childcare clubs. However, I do wonder whether they will both continue in the future as there are lots of after school extracurricular activities to pick from now too, so many parents WFH and nip out at 4/4.30 to pick up then instead. Therefore demand for the childcare ASC has dropped.

Forgot to say, I think one of the things announced in the last budget was that schools would have to have to provision for wrap around care.

“The government has set out an “ambition” that the parents of all primary-age children will be provided with “wraparound” childcare in school by September 2026.
In today’s Budget, chancellor Jeremy Hunt said that the Treasury would fund schools and local authorities to “increase supply of wraparound care so all parents [of school-age children] can drop their children off between 8am and 6pm”.
Mr Hunt said that one in three primary schools did not offer childcare at both ends of the school day, and that he wanted all schools to do this “either on their own or in partnership with other schools” by September 2026.
The Treasury’s Budget documentclarifies that the ambition is for “all parents of primary-age children” to be able to access care in school, and that the government will provide £289 million of start-up funding to councils and schools for this.
It added there would be a “national rollout” over 2024-25 and 2025-26.”

It will be a while!

We are very fortunate our small village primary school does wrap around care until 6pm. You could try talking to the school and other parents to see what take up would be like - if enough people would pay for it they might extend the hours?

we had one local school with no wrap around and we avoided it like the plague - last year it’s F2 had only 15 kids starting the school and the biggest class has 25 - I think that says it all since all the other local schools are over subscribed

Round my way all the other primaries have wrap around breakfast club and ASC until 6pm. Provided in the school by a private provider.

Childminders I should imagine - with such little wrap around I bet there will be a few

You are right that it’s ridiculous. Hopefully your school won’t tell you also that reception starters will have a staggered start so will only do mornings until October half term. I flipped at that one!