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No breakfast club or after school club

79 replies

raggybo · 04/07/2010 20:45

DS1 starts Reception in September at our local village school. When we looked round the school in September last year, the head told us that the breakfast club and after school club would be up and running by the time DS1 joined. This has not happened. I have had several conversations with the school about this and it seems to me that for some reason they cannot be bothered to set these services up. They have told me that they cannot find anyone to run these services, which I find odd considering current unemployment levels. The school receptionist admitted that they have only advertised for someone to run the clubs on the school notice board as she said they could not afford to advertise it anywhere else.

My husband and I both work so this is significant issue for us. I have asked the local council to look into this but nothing seems to has happened. Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do to try to force the school to provide these services?

OP posts:
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namelessmum · 04/07/2010 21:21

According to OP, head said that the services WOULD be up and running by September. Whatever the legal position, if the head made an unqualified statement of this nature when the school had not actually got as far as finding a service provider and knew that there might be problems in finding one, that was very irresponsible - can understand OP feeling aggrieved!

raggybo · 04/07/2010 21:24

Thank you namelessmum. When my friend was shown round the school, she tells me that they even showed her the new classroom that has been built for this purpose. I am aggrieved!

OP posts:
cat64 · 04/07/2010 21:25

This reply has been deleted

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GypsyMoth · 04/07/2010 21:28

a reception child in breakfast,then a full schoolday and then an after school club?? poor child!

samcrow · 04/07/2010 21:28

raggybo - now alarm bells would be ringing with me if the school has built a new classroom for something it isn't going to be providing.
I would be asking some serious questions about the financial governance. Unless you friend was misinformed I would want to know a lot more about this. I know you won't want to be marked down as a troublemaker before you start but I can't believe that any village school has enough spare funds to build classrooms on a whim.
Its starting to sound a bit fishy to me.

mitochondria · 04/07/2010 21:29

Same thing at our school. They told us last year when first son started "we are hoping to get it set up soon".
Same spiel this year as second son starts, but this time I don't believe them!
They said part of the problem is the raft of qualifications needed by anyone trying to set up such services, compared to the amount of pay that they will get. I think for small village schools it just isn't cost effective.

They sent out letters about a before school club, but did not get enough response from parents to justify it.

I know in our case there is a local nursery (next village along) who will collect children from the school and take them back to their premises. It might be worth seeing if your current nursery would be prepared to do that, or if any other local nurseries do.

BikeRunSki · 04/07/2010 21:33

re: advertising job. I work in the public sector and we have had a ban on advertisng for some time, since before the general election. I think this may well apply across the whole public sector.

fifitot · 04/07/2010 21:34

Threeblondeboys - unfortunately some people have to organise their childcare like that. Not ideal but necessary. When my DD starts school I will be lucky enough to work my hours so only have to do after school but for a while it looked like she would have to do before too.

clemetteattlee · 04/07/2010 21:45

Threeblondeboys, I was worried about that when DD started reception and so, although she had been in full-time nursery since a baby we found a child minder to do drop offs and pick ups. DD hated it (far too quiet) and was desperate to get to afterschool club where she gets to mix with lots of children of different ages and has the opportunity to run around/sing/dance/go on the climbing frame/face paint/play board games/go on the computer/be made a fuss of by the older girls etc etc etc. We have days when I go to collect her and she is sad that I have come before closing time.

In fact the club is so popular that some children go there once a week even though their mums don't work!

ruddynorah · 04/07/2010 21:46

your other option is to change your hours at work so one of you can do school drop off and the other can pick up.

compo · 04/07/2010 21:49

Threeblondeboys - sorry but your post is judgemental
some of us have no choice to use before and after school care

samcrow · 04/07/2010 21:52

clemetteattlee - the after school clubs at my DCs school are mainly used by those whose mums don't work as they are only for an hour after school which isn't enough for most people who have to make alternative arrangements that run later.
They are very good value and I'm happy for my DCs to go as they are good activities in themselves

TheFallenMadonna · 04/07/2010 21:53

The after school club at our school was first set up by parents rather than the school. It's run by the school now, but was run by parent committe (sort of like a preschool) for years. You could try that if there are several of you, although might be a bit late for September now.

TidyBush · 04/07/2010 22:05

This of no use really, but it does give an idea of what's happening with regard to extended services.

I run a charitable company based on a school site (purpose built in the 70s) and one of things we have provided for about 15 years is out of school childcare all year round.

I attend the extended schools cluster meetings, which is just made up of half a dozen head teachers and me. They won't give my company any of the funding even though we provide 95% of the core offer on the school site (and pay the school a handsome rent to be there) because we have always been sustainable. Instead they have divvied the money up between the schools in the cluster and spent it on a range of daft one-off projects (for example setting up their virtual learning environments which they were obliged to do anyway but getting away with it under the heading of 'publicising local provision to parents'). I have been told by a contact in our LEA that no one is really auditing where the extended services money is going and what if any impact it's having.

I've been approached by another Head teacher from a different cluster who is desparate to set up out of school care as they are under subscribed and losing potential pupils due to lack of childcare. I agreed to run a club for a year as a trial and worked out that, based on the initial number of parents interested, we would need about £10k for the first year, after which it would hopefully pay for itself as new children joined.

However, when the HT and I approached her area's cluster to try and get some start up funds we were told that they wouldn't release them as they wanted to run an area wide road safety programme. So this year's money was all committed to a one off scheme, when it could have been used to set up a long term sustainable service from September, that would have helped parents for years to come.

The inital idea of the extended schools programme (now called extended services) was that schools did have to offer the services, but after a lot of jumping up and down it was watered down to a signposting services. IME it has now resulted in schools either putting on a load of stuff that has undermined existing provision or using the money to pay for stuff they would have done anyway and then pointing parents in the direction of other providers for the services they actually need.

MollieO · 04/07/2010 22:11

Ds is at private school that offers wraparound care 7.30 am to 6.30pm. Not my plan to choose private but no other choice. His CM said she wouldn't continue to do the school run to our village (had been happy to take/collect ds from nursery) and then changed her mind but with a 65% fee increase. The village CMs don't do the hours I need (and there are only 2 of them). The schools tried to do a before/after school club but there wasn't the interest - 3 schools combined together so approx 500 pupils but only 4 used the after school club!

The benefit of the private school is ds can take part in after school clubs at school without me having to negotiate with the CM for different pick up times. Also the cost of school fees plus wraparound care was equivalent to the CM cost .

compo · 04/07/2010 22:17

Tidybush - you sound knowledgable so can I ask you a question?
I've seen on the local news plans to cut funding to breakfast clubs and afterschool clubs , do you know if this will affect those of us who pay for these services
or does it mean surestart free breakfast clubs?

compo · 04/07/2010 22:18

For example we pay £8 for afterschool club, I'm not sure what the government funds? I guess £8 x 30 kids wouldn't pay staffing costs, food etc from 3.25 to 6pm?

Rollergirl1 · 04/07/2010 22:30

I think it is bad that the school told you something that hasn't materialized. But you can't force them to provide after-school care and ultimately your childcare arrangements are your responsibility and not the schools. They don't have any obligation to you and I think you are being a bit presumptious assuming that they do.

ThreeBlondBoys: I'm not really sure why you felt the need to post that. Hardly useful.

TidyBush · 04/07/2010 22:38

It depends on the type of setting. For example although mine is a charity it is completly self funded. We charge £2.60 per hour but this is rising to £3.00 in September. The only reason it is sustainable is down to the fact that we have around 50 or 60 children each day.

Clubs that have low numbers have difficulties because of the standards required by Ofsted. For example under 8s must have a 1:8 staff ratio but with a minimum of 2 staff. So if there were only 9 or 10 children they would still have to pay for 2 staff, one of whom would need to be qualified to level 3 and the other at level 2. Once there are 17 children an additional member of staff is required.

They would also have to be CRB checked (free for the first check then payable for any subsequent checks), trained in first aid, child protection, food hygiene, etc, etc all renewed every 3 years.

Then there is equipment, resources, food (£100 p.w. for us), insurance, admin costs, annual Ofsted Registration (£200 for us), phone, rent, etc, etc.

I'd guess if you are paying £8 then your setting is self funded. It might be worth having a chat with the leader to see what the set up is. I'm always amazed by how many parents either think that the Council funds us or don't realise that the school charges us rent.

DreamTeamGirl · 04/07/2010 23:01

Raggy if there are 4 of you impacted already, is there some way of working out a sharing system between you?

I agree it sucks, and is so unfair to have been promised that the service would be there and then not have it. Its hard enough being a working parent without that sort of pressure

For what its worth I got an au pair that I had for the first 4 months of DS being at school. It wasnt cheap, and she was a bit rubbish, but it solved the immeadiate problem

Good luck!!

niftyfifty · 04/07/2010 23:15

A breakfast club is due to be set up where I work from September but apparently the Welsh Assembly will only pay for staff to work for an hour. I don't imagine that many people will want to apply for a job that is only for an hour a day starting at 8am, probably at minimum wage or just over. The amount of money provided for the breakfast is pathetic - unfortunately I can't remember the exact amount but 28p comes to mind ...

cory · 04/07/2010 23:22

Raggy, don't forget that even if the school did set up a breakfast/after school club, this would not solve all your childcare problems: you would still be stuck with holidays and bank holidays and inset days. Which is why private options (childminder/nanny/au pair) are often a better bet.

Clary · 04/07/2010 23:22

yes I agree with those who say that it is not up to the school to lay on after-school clubs.

The school needs to point you in the direction of provision. Our school actually has an excellent club in-house (only available to pupils tho run by outside agency) but a number in the area do not.

The school can tell you about childminders or other provision. Here there are a number of other clubs (well I can think of two within a couple of miles of us) which pick up from various schools.

But if you are in a village it may be more of an issue.

It's your issue to sort out tho. It's a shame the school told you it was setting up a club, but it clearly has found it impossible to get anyone to run it.

Maybe a small school doesn't have the need for it?

You could find an au pair or a nanny, or a nursery that does pick up? (some do).

GypsyMoth · 04/07/2010 23:31

It's what I think. Judgemental or unhelpfull, whatever. A new starter going through all that? You don't take time off to settle in?

You'll find no wraparound care for inset days, Illness or snow days either. What then? Relying on soley the school is a bad idea. School holidays?

clemetteattlee · 04/07/2010 23:34

Our wraparound care covers inset days and the school hasn't had a snow closure for thirty years!

Seriously, don't you think it is a bit odd assuming that all children would feel the same way about before/after school care? My DD loves it, I wouldn't assume from that that all children would love it, just as perhaps you shouldn't assume that it would be a "bad thing" for them all...