Creche Times - how do you manage?

eviltwin

My son goes to afterschool in his own school. Its run by a private company. I don't think the teachers or school staff have any involvement, the creche workers pick the kids up at hometime and lock up after themselves when they leave, they have a classroom in the school building but it has its own door which they can lock. The odd time I'd pick my son up in the evening they are the only ones in the entire building. Its a great service and its a shame more schools don't do it.

shesty

There's no way I would expect that service from teachers, but if a company was interested in providing it on school premises (or kind of ancillary childcare staff were made available by the dept of education to offer it in schools) then it would be a great system.
I am under no delusions about a teacher's job, no way would I expect of them.

sillysocks

I'd imagine the reluctance of schools to do this might be down to logistics and reputation. The after school would probably still be known as 'Schools Name After School Club' and if anything happened it would be associated with the school. Also, say for some reason the after school provider pulled out then parents would probably be in banging down the schools door to sort it out etc. You'd also have things like insurance, need for rooms big enough and who clears the rooms as I guess kids wouldn't be expected to sit at desks all evening etc.

Maybe I'm wrong but I imagine it's just too much hassle for schools on top of what they already have to do.

In saying that would love if our school did it! Especially for the hour in between infants finishing and the rest of the school-adds to the logistical nightmare of collections when you've two different times at the same school.

painauchocolat

Another second level teacher here, and I'd just point out that using classrooms for after school stuff is an absolute pain for the teacher! My room is used for study and it massively limits my access to my room. Really simple stuff like hanging posters / resources on walls, updating displays, clearing cupboards, finding notes, prepping classes /correcting without having to lug 60 hardback copies and 5 textbooks to the car/staffroom....

Considering a primary school teacher would want to hang new art / work samples on a weekly basis, I'd imagine they would be reluctant to vacate their room each day within 5 mins of the bell ringing. I know some teachers leave on the dot, but they generally are in the minority (and often arrive very early to compensate). Most teachers I know stay fairly late at least a couple of times a week. Not having access your room really does make a mess of this.

pwurple

Yeah it really is up to parents and their association to sort that stuff out. There is nothing in that for the teachers except a headache. That’s why we took it on ourselves.

We don’t use a classroom, we use the assembly area for drop off and afterschool.

Schools insurance covered it, the minders had to get garda vetted and the whole lot approved by both the school staff and the board.

It’s all doable.

sillysocks

pwurple wrote: »

Yeah it really is up to parents and their association to sort that stuff out. There is nothing in that for the teachers except a headache. That’s why we took it on ourselves.

We don’t use a classroom, we use the assembly area for drop off and afterschool.

Schools insurance covered it, the minders had to get garda vetted and the whole lot approved by both the school staff and the board.

It’s all doable.

That'd be our first issue-there's no common area/assembly area so it would have to be a classroom which as the other poster put better than me would be a disaster and never be agreed by teachers I imagine.
Fair play to ye for getting it up and running though, I'm sure you have a lot of grateful parents!

lonestargirl

In my son's school it's two SNAs who run the 'breakfast club'. It's for the hour from 7.45-8.45 before school starts. The use the science room so it's not a particular teacher's classroom. It's great for me as you can use it on an ad-hoc basis. I normally start at 9 but do 1/6 weeks of early shift starting at 8 plus the occasional early meeting.