Over the last five years there has been a large increase in the number of schools which offer a pre-school facility. Unlike as one minister attempted to suggest this week, this is not parents merely passing their parental responsibility onto teachers but more of a way of them being able to enjoy a career themselves. Pre-school clubs can have a massive benefit on the child, helping them to develop additional social skills and confidence.
My seven year old son attends a breakfast club. The club itself opens at half past seven in the morning however we normally arrive at eight o'clock. My son normally goes straight to play football with his friends and at twenty past eight will sit down to eat breakfast with them all.
In the morning my son nags me to get ready saying such things as, come on dad I want to get to school otherwise I will not have time to play in the football match. I have been quite astonished at how he has become such a more confident child since attending this school club. Wherever we go around the city he is often bumping into people he knows, people of ages. Who is that? I will ask. Oh she works at the breakfast club or he attends the breakfast club he will say.
The school have now opened an after school club and a holiday club following the success and popularity of the pre-school club. The after school club is already over-subscribed with many children asking their parents if they can join even though their parents are not working. Here again you can see that the children are not just being dumped on these schools but that they would prefer to socialise with their friends than merely going home each night to watch the boring kids television.
As a little test I informed my son that I had decided to leave work and that I would no longer be able to afford the pre-school and after school fees, I would be taking him to and picking him up from school. Have a guess what happened, he started crying? How cruel was I?
Steve Hill is a webmaster from Birmingham ; he has a number of websites including:
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