When is Teatimers at Sandygate oversubscribed?
It’s great to be wanted, especially on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The trouble is that everyone just wants those days. Unlike holidays, flights or supermarket deliveries we don’t charge higher prices for these popular sessions. The current situation is shown below:
So we do have good availability for many of the sessions we offer. You will always get spaces on Mondays and Fridays.
For the sessions that look certain to be oversubscribed, we have to manage the allocation of sessions carefully to accommodate as many people as possible.
Why does it take so long to get a space?
The spaces you are looking for come from existing families who are changing their arrangements. We have put a lot of effort into trying to find out what these changes will be. However few families with arrangements in place are thinking about their September arrangements in June.
Experience tells us that some more spaces will come available. However we cant assign spaces until we know we have them.
How are oversubscribed sessions managed?
Regular families have regular session places on specific days. They retain them until they give up some or all of those sessions. Having a regular place on one day does not give any special access for a different day.:
- If a family gives up a regular session, we offer it to the next person on the waiting list.
- If a family isn’t using their place on a particular day, we will offer that out to people on the waiting list.
At the start of the year, we allocate available places to families as follows
- Siblings of children (the same regular sessions).
- Families who are regular users of our under subscribed sessions
- Families on the waiting list.
How can Teatimers possibly be full?
Ultimately it comes down to how many children you can have in the building – adding extra staff just makes it more crowded. Historically, Tuesday afternoons have often been oversubscribed, so we have been working on solutions for some years.
The post Covid move toward hybrid working has become very noticeable across our sector. Demand for Tuesday to Thursday afternoons has gone up, whilst Monday and Friday demand has gone down. Pre-Covid parents booked around 4% more wraparound sessions overall and we were only ever full on a Tuesday afternoon.
Using our space effectively
- As soon as we know space has come up, we do our best to give it to someone else – even if its for that day. We incentivise parents to do this by waiving our notice period if someone else takes up the session.
- Our 3.45 pickup session is priced to attract Sandygate parents to have a short session. This frees up space for Holy Trinity children who arrive at around 3.50.
- We offer walks to / from Sandygate and Trinity. School staff (and occasionally others) get their child brought to them without taking up a place.
- With some external clubs we can manage our attendance across an afternoon to give a little extra flexibility or sometimes to create an emergency space.
- Combining these options allows us to to help more families than we have headline spaces for.