Open All Hours

Offering year-round childcare could transform your school in the eyes of the community, and it’s not as challenging as you might think, says Louise Reilly...

We’ve all seen the news: high childcare costs are preventing many parents from entering the labour market – and, for some families, childcare costs are leaving them worse off working than if they stayed home. Those who do work are often forced to take up term-time only positions, give up their jobs during the holidays, or even leave their children unsupervised after school and during the holidays because of a lack of local and flexible childcare.

With childcare costs rising, wages stagnating, fewer childminders available and changing work patterns, why aren’t schools offering their families the childcare they so badly need all year round on the school site?

Some schools already open earlier and run successful breakfast clubs; others offer after- school clubs. But those providing childcare from 8am to 6pm, 50 weeks a year, are few and far between. By offering more childcare, schools could provide a much-needed lifeline for many struggling families – not only enabling parents to work or attend training, but also providing peace of mind that their children are in a safe and familiar environment.

Consider for a moment what’s stopping your school from offering breakfast, after-school and holiday clubs all year round. Is the head worried about overworking staff or dealing with additional paperwork? Is the caretaker concerned about opening the school after hours? Are governors loathe to hand over management of, say, a holiday programme to an external organisation? Do admin staff say they can’t deal with bookings and payments? Maybe there aren’t enough trained special needs staff?

Other schools will share your concerns, but these barriers can be, and are being, overcome throughout the country. Take Rye Oak Primary School, for instance, which has recently developed its provision to include holiday programmes, as well as before- and after-school clubs. And then there’s Drumbeat School and ASD Service, a special school that’s expanded its childcare provision to cover not just breakfast clubs, after-school clubs and holiday programmes, but even Saturday clubs and residentials.

Your school too can dismantle barriers to providing flexible and affordable school-based childcare. Take the issue of affordability, for instance. Use a focus group or survey to scope your parents’ childcare needs and what they can afford. Find out what other local childcare providers charge and what they offer – and then consider how you can make your full-year provision affordable. Perhaps offer sibling discounts, loyalty cards, early booking or online booking discounts. Provide a range of options to suit families’ financial situations, such as half-day holiday sessions, or lower rates for children who bring their own snacks.

And if staffing’s a challenge, perhaps continue running your breakfast club but commission a third-party to manage your new after-school and/or holiday programmes – as Kingswood, Elm Wood and Meadowdale Primary Schools now do. Other schools have successfully addressed staffing issues by reworking the job descriptions of teaching assistants to include out-of-school- hours clubs; using volunteers; taking on a childcare apprentice; working in partnership with other schools (e.g. in a cluster); or inviting local childminders to work from the school site.

Schools such as Rye Oak and Drumbeat are seeing the benefits of taking the plunge and offering more childcare in their schools. Providing care outside of traditional hours can help market the school to prospective parents and even have an impact on the school roll. It creates a safe and secure environment for vulnerable pupils to visit during the holidays. And flexible childcare can enable parents to attend work or training so they can develop their confidence and self-esteem, and provide role models to their children.

“Whatever challenges we’ve faced, we’ve faced them head on,” says Rob Hyneman of Rye Oak Primary School, “even when that’s meant rearranging building works to take place outside of the school day so that holiday clubs can continue.”

“In setting up childcare, we evaluated different models of working and decided to run the provision in-house as we wanted to keep control over staffing, costs, activities, and so on,” he continues. “We set up a steering group to oversee the whole process: its members audited parents’ needs to find out what local families wanted; came up with a marketing strategy; and devised a quality checklist. It has taken a lot of hard work from all the people involved to get this far – but it’s been worth it. I challenge every school to consider offering more childcare.”

Whatever challenges your school faces in offering more childcare, you can find information, free resources and links to free training on the Learning Exchange (learning-exchange.org.uk).

About the author

Louise Reilly is communications officer for The Learning Exchange, Family Action’s network for schools and childcare providers in England.