CHILDREN will be deprived of contact with their parents under Tony Blair's plans for schools to open from 8am to 6pm, a Huddersfield head teacher claimed.
Stuart Merry said some parents regard their children as an accessory to their social lives and will take the opportunity to leave them at school from dawn until dusk.
Mr Merry, a head teacher from Emley First School, made the comments at the NASUWT conference in Belfast that the Government's aim to provide more breakfast and after-school clubs for children risked damaging family relationships.
Mr Merry said there was an argument for children with difficult home lives to spend time at school outside normal hours.
"They are actually better off being with someone who's qualified, getting a decent breakfast so they're ready for school and having some care afterwards," he said.
"But I know children who are left with childminders at sometimes seven and eight in the morning who don't see their parents until half past six or seven at night.
"That cannot be right in terms of family cohesion and what Tony Blair's talking about.
"I feel sorry for those children who don't see their parents.
"That, to me, is a real concern. There are two sides to this debate - the deprivation in terms of social care but the deprivation of actually not seeing your parents.
"I don't like that at all and I don't think schools should be in the business of encouraging that."
The Prime Minister wants every school to be an "extended school", open from 8am to 6pm, by 2010.
Schools will run sports and arts clubs after hours, as well as homework clubs and breakfast clubs.
