Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the potential merits of providing free after-school activities at schools.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The department has not made a recent assessment of the potential merits of providing free after-school activities at schools.

The department is committed to ensuring young people have access to high quality extracurricular opportunities. The department knows these are an important part of a rich educational experience and can bring wider benefits to young people's mental health, confidence, social skills and general wellbeing. We also recognise the important role wraparound childcare, including after-school clubs, has in enabling parents to work.

Schools are best placed to understand and meet the needs of their pupils and so have flexibility to decide what range of extracurricular activities to offer and how to resource these activities.  Both pupil premium and recovery premium can be used to fund enrichment activities. In March 2022, the department updated its guidance to make this clear to schools. Schools can choose how they wish to use this funding in line with a menu of approaches.

Working families can also get help with childcare costs through Tax Free Childcare (TFC) worth up to £2,000 per year for children aged up to 11, or £4,000 per year for children aged up to 17 with disabilities, and the childcare element of Universal Credit (UC) for children up to age 16. Parents and carers can benefit from TFC and UC for the cost of after-school clubs, but the providers must be on the Ofsted Early Years or Childcare registers.

The department also supports a range of initiatives to expand access to high quality extracurricular activities, for example investing over £200 million a year in our Holiday Activities and Food programme and working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to offer the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to all state secondary schools in England. The government is also investing £289 million in a new childcare ‘pathfinder’ scheme to support local authorities to work with primary schools and private providers to set up and deliver wraparound childcare before and after school.