Budgetary constraints have been plaguing primary schools for many years. As a result, schools have become innovative with how they increase their revenue. They have introduced methods such as paying for parking outside school hours, and hiring out schools spaces for external use. However, an innovative way to increase revenue that has been overlooked, is providing in-house wraparound care. We at magicbooking acknowledge there are two main roadblocks that hinder primary schools from using this as an opportunity to increase their revenue:
- The overall time and administration it takes to run this service.
- A lack of staff to manage the service.
To overcome these pain points, magicbooking have put together a few resources that can help schools implement in-house wraparound care as a means to increase their revenue.
How to reduce admin time
Without an efficient online solution, the time it takes to manage a breakfast and afterschool club can account for up to 80% of a school’s admin time. This leaves the team with little to no time to focus on the children and developing the activities for this service. An automated system can reduce admin time, aid in reducing the school’s debt and help to efficiently manage communication with parents. Referenced below are some of the benefits of adopting an online solution:
Reduces admin time by:
- Automatically generating and updating registers to reflect booking changes.
- Offering 24/7 booking availability.
- Automatically generating invoices and credit notes.
Reduces school debt by:
- Going cashless by booking via card, direct debit or setting up card instalment plans.
- Setting up an overdraft threshold that stops parents from booking in arrears.
- Effortlessly reconcile Childcare Vouchers.
Manages school’s communication by:
- Communicating efficiently with parents through email and SMS.
- Notifying parents instantly through the use of a noticeboard feature.
Implementing in-house wraparound care has been made easier and more efficient with an online solution.
How to get the staff you need
Primary schools have reported that one of the major hurdles they experience when trying to set up a wraparound care service, is not having the staff to run the sessions. As a result, magicbooking have provided some resources that can be utilised to ensure schools are adequately staffed to offer this service and increase their revenue.
Lunch time study clubs
Diversifying the responsibilities of your breakfast and afterschool club staff members is a great way to promote this service as a full working day to potential hires. This allows for staff to remain busy between the wraparound care hours and give students the opportunity to develop their knowledge in key subject areas.
One evident obstacle with diversifying a workforce would be the lack of funding to pay the needed staff members. If your school finds itself in this predicament, click here for resources provided by the Department of Education to help meet staffing cost needs.
Employ parents
Offering parents the opportunity to help run the in-house wraparound care is a great way to ensure schools are able to offer this service without having to use existing staff members. Parents can be brought into the fold on a voluntary basis or through offering them a discount on their wrapround care sessions for their children.
Giving parents the chance to gain a childcare qualification from their time with the school is a good incentive to ensure that schools have the staff to cover the breakfast and afterschool clubs. There is a list of free level 3 qualifications that the government offer, which schools can recommend to parents as an incentive. Click here to review the best suitable VRQs or NVQs that they can receive.
Pupil Premium (PP)
Schools can use the Pupil Premium (PP) grant to cover the costs needed to staff their in-house wraparound care service. They can offer a limited number of spaces to children within this scope, for breakfast and afterschool clubs, and use the PP budget to allocate a paid member of staff to run this service. This solution is cost efficient for schools and is likely to improve the punctuality and attendance for the underprivileged children while they receive this service for free.
Apprenticeships
These programmes are another cost effective way to bring new staff members on board or help upskill existing staff members. Apprenticeships benefit primary schools as well as the apprentices themselves. There are various schemes that the government have offered in the past to incentivise organisations to run their own apprenticeship programmes. The most common scheme that the government offer is the employer co-investment which was introduced to help community schools explore the great benefits of having an apprenticeship programme. Through this scheme the government are able to cover 95% of the costs for the training and assessment of the apprentice, removing the burden on a school to fund the entirety of the programme themselves.
The government also provides other incentives such as the small employee waiver which is offered to organisations who hire apprentices aged 16-24. The guidelines state that these apprentices must have previously been in the care of the local authority or have, in some capacity, had an education health and care plan (EHC) provided by the local authority. This criteria allows for schools to extend opportunities to capable young adults who have educational, health and social care needs, whilst having up to 100% of their apprenticeship costs covered by the Department of Education. Other incentives under this waiver allow for organisations and schools with less that 50 employees to have up to 100% of their programme costs covered.
In order to access any governmental support, schools must create an account on the apprenticeship service account, allowing them to access funding for the scheme and any incentives offered to start a programme. For more information on how schools can use government funding to run an apprenticeship programme, click here.
You are now good to go
Increasing a school’s income is never an easy task. However, adopting an online solution and utilising the resources provided above, schools are able to create and manage an in-house wraparound care service with ease. Magicbooking is the UK’s leading online solution for wrapround care and over 800 schools and clubs have used this automated system to spend less time on admin, manage payments online and communicate efficiently with parents. Adopting a great online solution coupled with the schemes available from the Department of Education, schools can meet their workforce needs and as a result increase their revenue.
Book a demo with us today
For more on how magicbooking can help to manage all of your school services, why not book a demo with us and our dedicated team can show you how magicbooking can work specifically for your school. Book a demo here!