Childminder or after school club?

[Verycold]

What are the advantages/disadvantages? This would be for after school care two afternoons a week. I only need term time care.

Depends a lot on the age of the child (I would suspect older children might prefer after school club, as long as the club caters for older children well). And also the age of other mindees/children using after school club (e.g. if you have an 8 year old, he might not be best pleased by being surrounded by 4 year olds).

For 2 afternoons I suspect I would veer towards after school club for simplicity.

If it's likely that you might ever want extra or ad-hoc care, might be worth exploring how flexible both options are (e.g. DD's after school club will accommodate her in extra sessions pretty much for the asking, which is great as I often need to book an ad-hoc one at short notice. If you're likely to be delayed coming home, maybe a childminder might be more sympathetic). Really depends on individual provision.

Thank you that's very helpful

My experience of the After school club for my DC was that by mixing with kids of all ages, they got to know children throughout the school which was great when they were doing group activities/ sports/ teams as they already knew kids in the other classes. As they got older, the leaders involved the older ones in helping to look after the younger ones and giving them responsibility for handing out snacks etc in recognition of their "seniority".

I use Breakfast & After school club, it is very reasonably priced at my childrens school, £1 per child for Breakfast & £2 per child for after school club but it does only run till 4.30pm. The school run the service themselves with some of the T.A.'s running the sessions rather than buying in actual childcare services. They base the cost on covering the T.A.'s wages and not making a profit.

It is therefore a fraction of the cost of a childminder £30 per week for the 2 rather than approx £90 a week for childminding.

As mentioned above there are a broad range of children from across the school the kids get to mix with and they do some of their homework and reading with the T.A.s as it can be 5pm before we get home and its difficult to fit everything in otherwise.

Around here it is whatever you can get - there is a dire shortage pf after and pre school care. The school run clubs are full so I have been unable to get a place. After an extensive search I have finally found 1 cm in the whole area that can do it. So no choice at all really.

Thanks. The after school club is not run by the school but privately. The children are picked up from school and taken there.

I think dd would prefer the club, she is 9, whereas for ds who is nearly 7 but has specisl needs a childminder might be better. Not sure if splitting them up is a good ides though!

I think from the children's point of view it can be nice to be separated sometimes as it gives them a break from each other. Personally I wouldn't want to pick up from 2 places as it just adds extra time.

I have two cm - one for each DS - but that is because if is so difficult to find one with a space.