Afternoon Sessions.

[Guest]

I am just doing a bit of research in to why as a pre-school, playgroup we always stick to offering morning sessions?

My guess is that the children are more alert in the morning and may be require a sleep in the afternoon. But our schools only offer afternoons when the child first goes up.

I considered the reasoning of dropping off the older child at school then dropping of the younger child at playgroup until lunch which then gives time to get things done before collecting from playgroup and then to go out again to do the older child school run. However should afternoon sessions take place the parent would do the morning school run for the older child, return home with younger child, deliver younger child to the setting for lunch then go off to do what ever and return after the schools have finished to collect the youngest child, so it would amount to the same running around.

I can not offer two sessions per day due to hall bookings. A quick survey found that none of our parents use the playgroup for childcare to enable them to work.

I am very interested in our reasoning's behind morning sessions. Have you tried just afternoons? What did you find?

[Gezabel]

We don't offer 'just afternoons' in that we are open all day but we do have several children who only attend afternoon sessions, by parental choice.

[louby loo]

We don't offer 'just afternoons' in that we are open all day but we do have several children who only attend afternoon sessions, by parental choice.

 

Same with us. Some parents do request afternoons only.

 

xx

[Fredbear]

Open Tues to Fri am and now tue and thurs pm, now we can offer two afternoon sessions more parents are choosing it, especially parents that have a young baby as well, i suppose it gives them more time to get organised in the morning. Like Gezabel says its parental choice.

[hali]

i used to offer afternoon sessions - but usually to the older children

[finleysmaid]

we offer mornings or afternoons and in exeptional circumstances a mixture of both (but not full day care) we run five days a week. Just as a matter of interest would any of your parents want more hours? only we have some pre-schools around here who only offer 3 hours in the mornings(nef) and then parents can pay for 1 or 2 hours in the afternoon. Traditionally pre-schools ran in the mornings because children had sleeps in the afternoon and parents wanted to get their jobs done in the morning(IMO) personally i dont feel it makes a difference to the children...except in a very few cases where little ones still do need that afternoon rest

[HappyMaz]

only we have some pre-schools around here who only offer 3 hours in the mornings(nef) and then parents can pay for 1 or 2 hours in the afternoon.

I'm one of those - we have always opened for three hours, and when the local authority offered grants to move to extended care, we offered lunch clubs and afternoon sessions. We charge for everything after the funded three hours.

[HoneyPancakes]

As a childminder (and as a parent a when my children were younger) I would often struggle to fit the sleeps for the babies in around after lunch nursery runs.

 

Honey

[Guest Biker]

We offer Extended care so open all day.

We used to offer mornings or afternoons with some children then taking up the opposite slot to their funded session as paid.

Now children attend a wide variety of sessions.Some mornings only,some afternoons only some all day every day and some taking their 15 hours over 2 1/2 days E.g 2 full days and one morning or afternoon session.

The parents love the flexibility.It is very complicated to organise when doing new intakes.For some children it works well for others i have my reservations.

 

One thing I will say is that in our setting there has always been a difference in morning and afternoon sessions.Children generally seem more laid back in the afternoons!

[Rea]

We've always been open 4 mornings and 2 afternoons. The younger children tend to start in the afternoon because the mornings fill up quickest.

Parents often tell us they dont want the afternoon because their child still needs a nap, but I can recall only one child who fell asleep in the afternoon. They tend to 'go with the flow' and adapt quite quickly.

Parents can indicate their prefered sessions on the application form and we try to mix and match to suit.

[fimbo]

we open 3 mornings and 2 afternoons - we had to do so for practical reasons, and we find that most parents start the younger children on a morning -then as they get the little bit older they then add afternoon sessions.

[kristina]

Hi

We originaly opened 5 mornings then due to an ever increasing waiting list we also opened 1 afternoon this has now increased to 2 afternoons. I still find mornings are more popular however the days we are open in the afternoon are full until September 2012 (speaks for itself really), I only have a handful of children that come in for afternoon only most are with us for the day (9-3).

 

Kris