All-day care for primary school children: City sets course for fair and reliable support
18.06.2025
The nationwide legal entitlement to all-day care for primary school children, which will gradually come into force from the 2026/27 school year, will introduce a system change in the care of children of primary school age. Offenbach's municipal council today adopted a new, comprehensive funding concept that will guarantee all elementary school reliable, fair and socially balanced support in future.
Mayor Sabine Groß on the new concept: "It was very important to me that we continue to make all previous after-school care funds and municipal funds for all-day schooling available to schools in full. With a city-wide distribution of funds, we are taking a decisive step towards greater educational equality and equal opportunities. It was also important to me that we create new comprehensive preventative services to support positive educational progress at an early stage. To this end, we will create a service for youth welfare at elementary school." Head of Education Paul-Gerhard Weiß adds: "Instead of selectively supporting individual school locations, we are now creating a fair basis for everyone. Because every child is important to us. At the same time, we are giving schools planning security for the coming years."
Groß and Weiß emphasize: "It was very important for us to make a decision before the summer break so that the schools have concrete figures for further planning and so that the employees in the after-school care centers know reliably how things will continue with the after-school care centers."
Legal claim means fundamental reorganization
Around 1,166 children currently receive all-day care via after-school care structures, which are mainly financed by operating cost subsidies from the youth welfare office. When the legal entitlement comes into force, an estimated 80 percent of primary school pupils will need to be provided with a needs-based offer - this corresponds to around 5,442 children in the 2029/30 school year. This massive expansion requires a comprehensive realignment of childcare concepts, responsibilities and financial structures.
By autumn 2025, the state will require schools to define their all-day profile (profile 2, 3 or "Pact for the All-Day" in accordance with the Hessian School Act) and call up the funds provided by the state for this purpose. An expansion of traditional after-school care places is not feasible for the city, either in terms of personnel or funding. Instead, the new concept relies on a city-wide, location-independent structure that makes do with existing resources - and distributes them more fairly. The city education authority, youth welfare office and state education authority have coordinated the proposals with each other, and the youth welfare committee also approved them at its meeting on 12.6.2025.
Gradual introduction - clear subsidies per child
The new concept provides for uniform funding of 500 euros per school year per child receiving all-day care. "It is important to us that the schools are provided with a budget that is easy to calculate and therefore easy to plan. We have implemented this with a fixed sum per pupil in all-day care," said Groß and Weiß. The funds will be allocated to a total of 21 schools: 13 elementary school, four integrated comprehensive schools with a primary level, three special schools and the Erasmus Bildungshaus. This planning creates reliability and supports the schools in implementing their school-specific concepts.
Central vacation care is being set up
As the legal entitlement also applies during vacation periods - with the exception of a maximum of four weeks per year - an additional eight weeks of childcare is required. The city is therefore planning a vacation program in cooperation with an external provider. Schools can join together in so-called clusters in order to register children together and thus enable efficient and affordable implementation. Supplementary co-financing through school all-day funding is still being examined.
Youth support at elementary school - early support for vulnerable educational biographies
Another component of the new concept is the nationwide introduction of the "youth support at elementary school" format. The aim is to counteract socio-structural disadvantages at an early stage, counteract school failure at an early stage and prevent serious learning deficits. "The service, which is designed and coordinated by the youth welfare office, is aimed at all primary school pupils and focuses on preventative individual and family work in close cooperation with the schools. From 2028/29, more than 2.1 million euros will be available annually for the full range of services," says Groß.
After-school programs are only gradually being phased out
Existing school and extracurricular after-school programs (including the so-called "all-day classes") will no longer be subsidized from the 2026/27 school year. However, existing classes will continue to be funded until the end of fourth grade. In addition, all other after-school care places will also be gradually reduced - in parallel with the introduction of the new all-day structure at schools.
Previous after-school funds are made available in full for the implementation of all-day schooling
The previous funding from the Youth Welfare Office and the City Schools Department - around 6.8 million euros per year - will flow entirely into the implementation of the new all-day concept. "Education is a top priority in our city - we all agree on that politically," emphasizes Head of Education Weiß. "That is why we have made a conscious decision not to cut the available funds, but to invest specifically in the promotion and support of primary school pupils." At the same time, the municipal authorities are tasked with regularly evaluating the use of the funds: If expenditure is lower, funds should be used to expand existing offers or develop new ones.
Mayor Groß emphasizes the social support that will be associated with the new concept: "Youth support at schools helps children whose school biography is at risk. Unfortunately, this is also increasingly the case for primary school pupils, and we have social problems at almost all primary school locations. For this reason, we want to strengthen cooperation with parents, outreach work in cases of high absenteeism, cooperation with teachers and close links with the social services of the youth welfare office so that no child is left behind in the first years of school."