Mr Hunt's wrap around care

[BeeMe]

Just wondering exactly how care for children before school and after until 6pm will be possible in all schools.

Who will staff them? My school struggles to fill teaching assistant vacancies as it is.

Where will all the children go? Many school halls are large enough for whole school assemblies, but not lots of children doing different activities. Teachers preparing resources, marking and tidying their rooms won't want them in their classrooms.

I teach secondary, but I have no idea how it will work. Although there's nothing in the announcement to say it's primary only, so maybe the expectation is that secondary will put something on?

Teachers can't staff it because it will mess with directed time and/or clash with meetings/CPD/parents evenings etc.

I agree that a lot of TAs will not want to do it, and there's also the issue of fitting in appropriate breaks for a TA working from 8-6.

I guess some could be outsourced to external providers, but I also agree space is an issue- what about when the hall etc is wanted for something else e.g. a performance? And currently some schools make money by renting out their halls to clubs etc.

It also very much perpetuates the idea that school = childcare.

It's a headline: there's no intention that it will happen

Well quite- it's very likely the Tories will be long gone by 2026.

But also, it's very vague. TBF I think a school could offer 5 wrap around places from 8-6 at £100 a day or something daft and nominally fulfil what's being expected of them.

Working at a boarding school we automatically offer wrap around provision for day pupils. But everything is structured differently, breakfast is from 7:30 till 8, then in house registration, tutor time and lessons start at 9. 20min morning break, an hour for lunch then end of day tutor time. Activity slot 1 from 4-5, activity slot 2 from 5-6. Tea is served from 5-6:30. Prep starts at 7.

But that takes a lot of set up and isn’t cheap.

I should add - this is for 13+. Certainly wouldn't work for little peeps.

Surely lots of schools already offer before and after school childcare? My children are now in their 20s and their old primary school starting offering it just before the younger one left.

I've just checked on their website and the school offers care from 7.45 am until 6pm. The school runs the breakfast club but the after-school care is provided by an external organisation (which also provides holiday clubs at the school).

I don't think there was any suggestion that every school had to offer this provision, but a suggestion that schools might want to work together to do so (obviously there would need to be some way of getting children from one school to another).

The biggest problems I can see are a) insufficient demand in some small schools to make it worthwhile and b) too much demand, and insufficient places available.

Round me it's almost exclusively provided by external, private, companies. Parents pay, so other than renting the company the school hall, from what I can gather the school staff have very little to do would it. This is the model that I expect the government have in mind. What they'll do for those schools who don't have the private providers willing to provide it I don't know. Maybe that's what the funding is for, to bung them some dosh to make it worth their while.

We have it in classrooms, it's rubbish. Teachers end up staffing it when the staff for it are off sick. Demand is poor due to parents WFH. I imagine we'll struggle to staff it when the current lady inevitably leaves. As a working parent I use an ASC myself but it's not workable in all settings.

About ten years ago there was a govt paper or something which recommended after school care for children up to y9.

Very few secondaries provide this however.