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Changing from mornings only to include afternoon sessions


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Hi

We are a small morning only pre-school and to keep up with what is offered by other settings in the area we have made a decision to open for afternoon session as well. We believe there is a need for this as we have lost two children due to the fact we could not offer afternnons.

We would like to any advice or experiences from anyone who has done this.

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Hi. I did this quite a few years ago and never looked back! Occupancy rose dramatically. You need to consider what you will do over lunch hour, whether children will have the option to stay all day, staff breaks if your day is longer than 6 hours.

 

I'd say , go for it!

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Yes we do it for two afternoons and those mornings always fill up first, many for the full day but sometimes parents take a gamble and 'pencil' names if for the full day- and they get first option on spaces as the year progresses. We've found the youngest seem to do a couple of mornings for the first year, then the full day once 3 yr funding kicks in.

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Thank for the support, it is good to know the success that you have had.

We realised that we also need to think of a sleeping area because some of our current children still have afternoon naps. Any ideas/ suggestions on mats, we are a pack away group with minimal storage.

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Thank for the support, it is good to know the success that you have had.

We realised that we also need to think of a sleeping area because some of our current children still have afternoon naps. Any ideas/ suggestions on mats, we are a pack away group with minimal storage.

 

We bought some fold-up mats, sheets (I cut up a big one to make four cot sheet sizes) some fleece blankets (ikea) ........... and have never used any!

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We have a wicket basket in our quiet area with a couple of cotton cot blankets from matalan. It's only been needed a couple of times for sleeping children. We are in a rural area and introduced full days so that parents could access their 15 hours over fewer days and less journeys so saving fuel. Quite a few then top up the extra 3 hours to have 3 full days. Works well for us.

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We are into our third year of extending to afternoon sessions and it has been a great success. We have some do all day and some just the afternoon. We also bought blankets and mats and only time we have used them have been in the mornings, when we have had the odd child doze off. Never had to use them in the afternoon.

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We too did this,

 

We found a mixture of hours being taken, some liked starting with lunch and staying for the afternoon rather than a morning .. so work out the hours you would be happy with , we had morning only, morning plus lunch, lunch plus afternoon, afternoon only or all day..that way we could work out an plan staff needed..

 

We never used mats for sleep but had a small rug , cushions and a blanket should we need it.. and found a quiet corner.. but we seldom had any child sleep.

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