The challenge of developing afterschool care is that families’ needs and preferences vary widely – but basing services in, or at least beside, a primary school seems an obvious place to start.

"Barnardos would love to see schools being used as a venue because they are largely unoccupied from 3pm; particularly at primary-school level," says June Tinsley. "There are models abroad that use schools as venues and it is not necessarily teachers who are providing it. I think it would be logical and make total sense."

When Montessori teacher Pamela Carter, who has two sons attending Kildare Place School in Rathmines, Dublin, saw fellow parents under pressure to arrange afterschool care, she decided to try to do something about it.

As the national school didn’t have space to accommodate such a service, she and a colleague, Vivienne Moore, leased premises within short walking distance of the school and established afterschool care there last September.

Socialise with friends

The flexibility “The Club” offers around how often and for how long children attend is something most parents can only dream of.

“It doesn’t have to be booked in advance,” Carter explains, although she recommends people who rely on it for set work hours to book. However, the club operates only from 1.30pm to 5pm because most of the parents using it, who pay €6 an hour, work for themselves.

“Ideally I think afterschool should be free play and a certain amount of supervised homework,” says Carter. “The whole thing revolves around it being safe and fun, and a chance for children to socialise with their friends.”

After being exclusive to one school for the first year, Carter is planning to expand because they have plenty of space and, not surprisingly, parents from other schools in the area are making inquiries.

Meanwhile, across the city, Tigers After School Care, is a good example of a private provider working within primary school premises. Its founder, Karen Clince, started in St Vincent's CBS in Glasnevin in 2003, where she had worked as a resource teacher.

“Primary schools can be quite nervous about giving over space to somebody else because they are entrusting them with their reputation,” she says.

But once her afterschool proved its professionalism, “it opened doors to go into other schools”.

It now has out-of-school care services in nine schools in north and west Dublin. Many of them have breakfast clubs that cater for more than 300 children.

About half the parents using Tigers are working part-time, but they can send their children in for anything from one day a month to five days a week.

Club atmosphere

Fees operate on a sliding scale downwards from €6 an hour and parents are given the choice of a term-time contract, or a 52-week contract with the cost of full-time camps during school holidays built into the monthly payments.

“We try to be as flexible as we can because, as a parent myself, I know how difficult it is,” says Clince, who has a 12-year-old daughter and a six-year-old son.

Operating on school premises not only means that children don’t require transport – although in some cases they collect from neighbouring schools – but it also enables the youngsters to take part in extracurricular activities that might be run there.

Schools often think that accommodating the service is going to be a headache, Clince says, but soon realise it’s win-win: parents are delighted to have the facility and the rent Tigers pays goes into school funds.

“Our main feature is the way we treat the children: it is very different from school and it is very different from creche.

“The children actually want to be with us.It is like a club atmosphere,” she adds.