Starting your own Breakfast & After School Club can be somewhat of a daunting task. Whether you are a school, academy or MAT, there are many important tasks and activities that need to be completed prior to opening, together with daily, weekly and monthly activities to keep the club running.
In our experience, most schools are comfortable with the day-to-day provision of the club, including activities, provision of food and staffing, as these tasks closely mirror school. It is more often the volume of administration, booking and payment reconciliation, together with childcare-specific operational policies and procedures, that can cause initial and ongoing anxiety.
To help, we have put together some tips for schools starting their own care. We hope you find them useful!
1. Clear, firm terms and conditions
Reasonable T&Cs that are clear and unambiguous minimise the number of difficult conversations with parents. You want the children, parents and your staff to know where they stand. Your conditions concerning paying on time, preferably in advance, late collections, behavioural expectations and more will set the tone.
Your staff will stay in your employment longer and be more invested in the club if they feel supported by your terms and conditions. Parents will also appreciate the clarity.
2. Sensible pricing that reflects a quality offer
Your aim in running a club is undoubtedly to meet your community’s needs, but any additional income to support your budget is also of great benefit. Clearly, if you set your prices too high, your club may not be successful. Equally, if you are aiming to provide a high-quality service, there is a cost associated with providing it, and it is important to be confident in reflecting that in your pricing.
If you set a fair price and demonstrate the value you are offering, you stand every chance that parents will use your service.
To help you set your pricing, you can use childcare.co.uk to see the cost of a childminder in your area. Once you have the average hourly rate, you can use this to calculate your session cost.
For more information on pricing, particularly whether to stagger your prices by arrival or collection times, see our blog on pricing.
3. Use your club strategically for staff recruitment and retention
Running a vibrant, busy wraparound club can be a full-time job, and you will certainly want a competent, well-trained person in charge. They will also need good-quality colleagues to work with the children, and it is often Teaching Assistants who fill this role.
By adding breakfast club hours, after-school club hours, or both, to standard Teaching Assistant hours, your vacancies become attractive to more people for whom working from 9am to 3pm is not quite enough. With recruitment being so challenging, anything you can do to stand out from other schools will help.
4. Factor in your administration time
While you may intend to complete all administration in-house, do not underestimate the volume and breadth of enquiries you will receive. You can expect the same range of enquiries that you receive in school, with additional questions about payments, bookings and individual account reconciliations.
These enquiries take time to answer, often involve checking multiple systems for evidence of payments and bookings, and require you to keep up with emails and messages outside club hours. Parents may want you to be available 24 hours a day, which is clearly not possible, but they will nevertheless expect quick answers to their booking and payment queries.
It is possible to remove up to 95% of these enquiries, however…
5. A booking system that enables parents to book 24/7 and provides valuable insight into your club’s performance
Want to make your club a success from the start? You need a great booking system that will maximise your income, accept bookings from parents while the club is running, or at any other time, and automate your payment collection.
Childcare Bookings for Schools works with schools by providing a state-of-the-art booking system and a fully outsourced booking, payment and administration service.
If you would like to find out more about our service, please do get in touch.
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