Children's Minister David Johnston visits Linslade Lower School

The government announced up to £1,576,000 to support delivery over the length of the programme in Central Bedfordshire alone, with the rest of the country set to benefit from similar funding from September.

Under these new plans, childcare will be made available from 8am to 6pm by 2026 nationally for parents who may need to access flexible childcare.

Wraparound childcare provisions are essential not only for parents needing support for their children outside of school hours, but also for children's personal development.

These come in the form of after school clubs, which are typically run by schools themselves or by external services.

Headteacher at Linslade Lower School in Leighton Buzzard, Hazel Farlam, welcomes the plans.

At her school, childcare is provided by an external service called Kidz Zone Club, which operates across 25 schools in the area.

She said: "Teachers are very good at teaching, we obviously have structures and we have ways of doing things in the classroom, so it's nice for them to be able to come to the afterschool club and have some fun activities. Having a fun and active after school club engages the children in a positive way."

Kidz Zone Clubs provide a range of activities to engage with children, which Managing Director Scott McCafferty assures is only made possible at a high standard because of the time they are able to dedicate to organising activities and rolling them out across the schools they work with.

He said: "At our wraparound setting, our first hour we try to do an active hour, whether that's a sport or a multi-skills station like this, and we also do creative activities."

"Some schools that run their own wraparound will be brilliant at it as well, I think it's very much down to the individuals you've got working in the setting."

"The thing for us is this allows us to be specialists at this, because this is what we do, we have a lot of time we can dedicate to how we run our clubs."

The children enjoyed meeting the MP and were keen to show off their sporting skills during the Olympics Themed active hour. For more details about Linslade Lower School and Kidz Zone please go to-

www.linsladelower.co.uk

www.kidzzoneclub.com/before-after-school-clubs