The Kingsley School's partnership with St Peter's Catholic Primary School,
We provide wrap around care before and after school for pupils from St. Peter’s Catholic Primary School who would not otherwise have access to this facility, and therefore seriously disadvantage their working parents.
Aims
St. Peter’s is a small primary school with 107 pupils on roll, and is rated as Good by Ofsted. It is located in the very centre of Leamington Spa, and consequently has very little space to add any new facilities. The school felt that it had neither the financial nor physical resources to be able to set up a before and after school facility, and therefore approached us to see if we could help. We are located approximately 0.5 miles from St. Peter’s.
The Kingsley's critical support for this project was arranging transport between the schools. We use two mini busses and employ two drivers to achieve this. Parents drop their children off at our school in the morning from 7:15am and we arrange for them to be taken by bus ready for registration. At the end of the school day we collect the pupils from St. Peter’s and bring them to Kingsley from where parents collect them later in the afternoon. There are safeguarding procedures in place to ensure that the collection and handover from St. Peters in safely managed.
Background
In the autumn of 2012, we were approached by representatives of the PTA of St. Peter’s to ask if we would consider providing wrap-around care for the pupils of their school. Without the assistance of The Kingsley School, it might not have been possible to establish a wrap around care facility that assisted working parents from St. Peter’s in managing their childcare arrangements before and after school. We worked together with staff and parental representatives from St. Peter’s and established the new facility that was open to pupils from both schools which began operation in January 2013.
Resources
The club operates from the library and gym in our Prep School each day, and includes the provision of breakfast in the morning and a light tea in the late afternoon. It involves 2 mini bus drivers at the start and end of each day, and also three other members of our support staff to look after the children. As well as feeding and caring for the pupils, we offer a facility for the children to complete homework in a quiet area as well.
There is a charge to parents for using the facility, but we provide the transport free of charge.
Impact
The club has gone from strength to strength, with approximately 25 pupils from St. Peter’s using the facility each day. This equates to over 20% of the total pupil numbers from our partner school. Since its inception we have needed to increase staffing in both the childcare and transportation elements to cope with the increased demand.
We regularly receive excellent feedback from the parents of our partner school who are grateful for the facility provided to them
Pupil Involvement
The club is open to all pupils from St. Peter’s, whose ages range from 5 to 11 years old.
Frequency
This is an ongoing project, open 5 days per week in term time.