AS ANY PARENT knows, finding high quality child care is incredibly difficult. And even when you do find it, it is unlikely to be flexible enough to meet your needs because those needs are constantly changing.

One of the biggest changes occurs when your child starts school. For, working parents or for parents at home with pre school children, collecting children from their junior infants class at 12.40 p.m. or 1.30 p.m. can be extremely problematic. Add to the equation the older brother or sister in second or third class who finishes school at 2.30 p.m and your whole day can turn into a logistical nightmare.

However, for the parents of children at one school in Dublin, the nightmare has ended.

Maria Spring, principal of St Clare's Primary School, Harold's Cross, decided to set up an after school care facility for the school in February last year.

"Everybody is working today, and you have to realise that you have to cater for those parents who are working and they're working at different times because life is now becoming very difficult of course we're lucky. Not every primary school would be able to do what we're doing."

Maria Spring is lucky, she says, because when she approached Sister Helen Conway, the Abbess General of the St Clare Sisters, she met with whole hearted support. The order found the space for the facility and subsidises lighting, heating, materials and the other costs associated with running a high quality facility

As a result of this financial backing, St Clare's is able to charge the stupefying low sum of £1 an hour or £3 a day, to parents partaking of after school care for their children.

And unlike many commercially operated creches, where parent's are often asked to pay for a whole week even when they do not need care for their child for a whole week St Clare's after school is eminently flexible.

"Some children only come on a Friday, some come on Mondays and Wednesdays, others will do every day except Friday. Some parents don't finish work until 5.30 p.m. so they collect their children before 6 p.m. when we close, but other parents work part time and may collect their child at 3 p.m. We also take some children of job sharers on alternate weeks," Spring says.

If you think all that's too good to be true, there's more.

"It's on offer to all children in the school, although the reality is that by the end of third class most children consider themselves too"

grown up, so the age group is really four to 10, but we'll also take in children from our pre school as well.

"Sister Anne Ryan and Mary Trueman, who run the after school centre, have coordinated it into the other extracurricular activities, on offer at the school," Spring explains. Thus, children finishing school at 1.30 p.m. or 2.30 p.m. can spend an hour doing Irish dancing, tap dancing, camogie, hurling, speech and drama, basketball or German amazing stuff for the children, and wonderful for those parents who local obliged to spend the weekend ferrying their children to countless recreational activities in an effort to ensure that they don't lose out because they have a Mam and Dad who work.

AFTER THEIR exertions, the children go to the after school centre, where they change out of their uniforms and are provided with a drink (parents provide the food for their children).

The centre in the morning it houses the pre school is warm, bright and colourful. Different corners of the room house different activities. There are art and painting materials in one corner, puzzles and games in another and an area set aside for doing homework.

At least once during the afternoon the children go out with a teacher for a walk, or to play in the playground. Often they will work on nature projects, visiting the local park to fill in worksheets and observe the plants and trees.

Gemma Murphy and Pauline Pointon, who staff the centre, are both trained Montessori teachers and are able to combine the recreational and the educational, Spring says. They are also able to help the children with their homework.

"There's no way you can expect a child to do his or her homework at 8 p.m. and expect it to go in," says Spring, who is conscious that for many working parents this is the only time many of them are able to supervise their children's work.

So, as part of a structured afternoon, the staff set aside an hour and a half for homework. "They can help the children, and if any of them are experiencing a particular difficulty they have a direct line both to the parents and to the other teachers in the school."

St Clare's after school centre has been a huge success, a classic example of the staff of a school listening to parents and responding to an obvious need.

"I had always been troubled by the sight of children hanging around after school waiting for someone to collect them and always ensured that the staff took care of these children. It was clear the parents needed it. Individual parents would come and ask if I knew anyone who could collect their children from school and mind them, so I, went to see the Abbess General.

The rest, as they say, is history. And there are many parents out there who no doubt hope the St Clare's after school service will also be a historic landmark.