After school care lifts pupils' standards

Quality after-school care can help considerably towards better educational and social outcomes for children, and the children at St Mary's School in Wanganui would agree with that.

Skids (Safe Kids In Daily Supervision) operates in more than 90 schools around the country, but the organisation's managing director, Dawn Engelbrecht, said it was much more than a glorified baby-sitting service.

"There is a growing demand for better standards in after-school care," Mrs Engelbrecht said.

She said less than five years ago, Skids was telling schools they could provide much more than baby-sitting.

"It shows school boards and principals are viewing after-school care as an additional tool in their education arsenal and their expectations will increase even further over time," she said.

Mrs Engelbrecht said the Ministry of Education was looking at ways of improving NCEA results and strategies to extend school learning and this would inevitably turn greater attention upon out of school care outcomes.

"We have many examples of children whose education and general happiness have been turned completely around because of the way we have been able to use that time from 3-6pm before working parents pick them up from school."

She said the two to three-hour time period after school can be a very powerful time of day for a child's development.

Skid cares for more than 3500 New Zealand children on behalf of working parents and is now serving its first four Australian schools and demand for the concept was also being received in Europe and Asia.

Wendy Howle, the Wanganui Skids manager, runs the programme at St Mary's School and she said the children benefited immensely from the after-school programme.