Demountable after-school care ‘hubs’ rolled out to create more places for students

Private after-hours care providers cannot always access the space they need within schools to run the service. If they use classrooms, they must clean up after every out-of-school-hours session, which is inconvenient both for the after-school educators and the school’s teachers.

They also struggle to store the art, learning and sporting equipment they use with students. There are per-square metre play space rules, so the hubs will only suit schools with larger grounds.

Pauline O’Kane, chief executive of Network of Community Activities, which represents some of the out-of-school-hours providers, said she had been lobbying for the policy, and welcomed it.

“When you are operating a quality service, and you have to meet the laws and regulations and the national quality framework, you need a dedicated space you can work out of and do all the extra administration that has to happen,” she said.

“Our framework talks about a sense of belonging, and children need somewhere to identify their time out of school in their own dedicated space. It doesn’t have to be flash, it has to have some of the basic things in,” she said. “It means children can do continuous projects, they might be involved in an art project, they might be involved in a game.”

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In recent years, demand for out-of-school-hours care has been so high in some parts of Sydney that families have been put on waiting lists for more than a year, forcing many working parents to turn to nannies.

When COVID-19 hit, attendance at after-hours services plummeted. Ms O’Kane said demand was still patchy; in some areas, parents working from home had reduced demand, but in others, including parts of western Sydney, some services were still unable to offer a place to everyone who wanted one.

The Outside School Hours Council of Australia (OSHCA) – which represents bigger providers – said attendance in term four last year was down between 29 and 46 per cent compared with term one.