Elm Park Primary School

Dear parents and carers,

Important changes to breakfast and after school club pricing and booking system

From Thursday 4th January 2024 our childcare provisions will be changing. The changes are being made to address a number of issues; our provisions are becoming increasingly popular and we must therefore cap the number of children we can accommodate at one session in order to be able to run the sessions effectively. The school is spending a great deal of admin time chasing up breakfast and after school club payments and arrears and the ad hoc use of the provisions no longer works; as it can often mean that senior staff are having to source additional staff to work in breakfast and after school club at very short notice, due to large numbers of children using the service at short notice, which can often prove difficult.

We are therefore moving to a system that many school and private childcare provisions already use to address these issues.

The changes in procedures need to be made to ensure that we have a clear idea of how many children will be in the provisions well in advance, so that we can ensure that health, safety and safeguarding measures are compliant and effective.

 New booking arrangements

• Places for your child at breakfast and after school club must be booked and paid for 2 weeks in advance. Parents should book a place and make payment for their requirements at least two weeks (or more) in advance using their ParentPay account. For example parents must book the number of places over the days that they require for 2 or more weeks at a time.
• The deadline for all bookings for parents to use the service from Thursday 4th January will be Monday 18th December 2023.

 Deadline dates for Spring Term

Monday 18th December:            for use of BASC from Thursday 4th January - Friday 19th

January 2024

Friday 5th January:                   for use of BASC from Monday 22nd January - Friday 2nd

February 2024

Friday 22nd January:                 for use of BASC from Monday 5th February - Friday 16th

February 2024

Friday 9th February:                  for use of BASC from Monday 26th February - Friday 8th

March 2024

Monday 26th February:             for use of BASC from Monday 11th March - Thursday 28th

March 2024           

• If you have any issues or do not currently have a ParentPay account, then please contact Mrs Gearing, our Admin Assistant in the office on 01708 451463 or by email cgearing.epps@theaspirelearningfederation.co.uk and she will be happy to help set this up.
• As soon as bookings reach our maximum pupil number limit, parents will no longer be able to make a booking for their child as there will be a maximum number of pupils able to attend at any one session.

 New pricing for breakfast club

• A place at breakfast club for one child will be based on a flat rate of £5. This price will include breakfast; it will be up to you and your child as to whether the ‘breakfast’ food offer is taken up or not. There is no sibling reduction for breakfast club.

 Pricing for after school club

• A place at after school club for one child is set at £5 per hour or £12.50 for the full session (3:30-6:00pm)
• We also run a sibling offer of £4:00 per hour for each additional sibling or £10:00 for the full session (3:30-6:00pm) - these costs will remain the same for the time being.

Parents must book a place for their child on the days that they will require the use of breakfast and/or after school club for each week 2 weeks in advance. If your child is not on our booking list, they will be refused entry to our childcare provisions.

If you have a credit balance on your ParentPay account, we will manually transfer the credit to the new system for you.  If you have a debt on your ParentPay account, you will not be able to book on the new system without clearing the debt first.

We ask that parents and carers respect the new arrangements and make sure that bookings and payment are completed by the deadline date as agreed to avoid the disappointment of being turned away. 

Yours faithfully,

Ms Victoria Morris

Executive Headteacher

@vmorris@theaspirelearningfederation.co.uk