Recently I began to study for an Early Childhood Studies degree. But as a mother of three children, I am finding childcare for my elder two is much more of a problem than for my two-year-old.
Although there is after-school provision in the area where I live, I have had problems in finding places for my two elder children. As my daughter cannot attend after-school sessions at the same time as my son, I have had to find another place somewhere else for one of them.
While my local leisure centre offers a daily after-school facility, a large number of the children who attend it have to be chauffeured there from several schools around the town. In the current climate where close supervision of children is essential, I would like to see better wraparound care facilities where the children do not have to leave the school grounds once the school day ends in the afternoon.
Day nurseries like the one that my two-year-old is attending are open until 6pm. Although nursery staff have offered to take and collect older children to and from school in the morning and afternoon, my problem is that my children go to a different school than some of the other children. This has meant that either I have to rely on my husband to collect them when he is working nights, or have to ask my mother, who is not as young as she was, to collect them.
This is not an ideal situation for anybody - especially as the Early Childhood Studies degree I am studying is telling me all about the wonderful after-school facilities available. I am sure that with better organisation these clubs would be able to help out a lot more parents. But if they are located in buildings away from the school grounds, it always means that someone has to take them from one place to the other. As that someone is usually me, I feel it is defeating the whole object of after-school provision.
