How do you deal with school timings when you have no family help?

[WhyTheHeckMe]

This is a few years off for me yet but I can't stop thinking about it! DS is currently at nursery but I can't work out where he'll go before and after school.
Me and dh currently leave the house at 7.30am and take ds to nursery
He gets picked up at 5.
This arrangement obviously works fine now and he loves nursery (goes 4 days a week).
What options are actually out there when they start school?
What time do breakfast and after school clubs tend to run and approx how much do they charge?
Also do kids hate them?
What are "normal school hours"?
I am starting to feel incredible guilty. I was lucky enough to have my mum there until I was 11, she didn't work so she never missed a school drop off or pick up. I will only get to do this once a week and I feel sorry for ds.
Work won't let me drop to any less than 4 full days.
Any advice and experience will be welcome!

[Iamastonished]

You find a child minder to take your child before and after school. Several children went to child minders before and after school in our village..

[2014newme]

Breakfast club is 7.30 at our school and us,£4. After school club is till 6 and is £9.

I used a childminder when mine started as I wanted them to have dinner before it got too late. Now they go to after school club. No they don't hate it.
Holiday club is £21_£49 per day depending which one we use
I pay with childcare vouchers for all of it.

[clematisflower]

Breakfast club starts at 7.30am, after school club finishes at 6pm. Breakfast is £2, ASC is £10.
My son enjoys going, he's 5 and luckily some friends from his class go too, I don't think he would enjoy it otherwise.

Normal school hours are roughly 9-3pm - but depends on school.

Not all schools have breakfast and ASC. I guess childminders would be your option then.

Can your husband do any drop offs/pick ups?

I did feel guilty before he started, but actually as he seems to enjoy it, it's been ok. I am lucky that I can pick up 3 times a week at 3pm, but my husband can't do any drop off/pick ups.

[SavoyCabbage]

Not all schools have breakfast clubs and after school care so you will need to look into that. I don't think kids hate them. Most seem quite fun and relaxed.

So,e private nurseries do after school care, picking children up from school and taking them back to,the nursery.

Many childminders will be associated with a certain school. Unofficially I mean. But they will pick up and drop off to that school.

[RedSkyAtNight]

Even if your child's school doesn't offer an after school club you may also find that local after school clubs do pickups from there. DD's school has its own breakfast and after school clubs and then at least 3 other ASCs that pick up from there.

[JassyRadlett]

My advice would be to research your childcare options alongside choosing a school. For example, we discovered that hardly any childminders cover DS's school, it's a weird local anomaly, and places at the after school club were like hen's teeth so we had to be really on the ball.

Our club runs from 0745 to 5.55. DS1 (Reception), after resisting violently for the first week, adores it. It's run by teaching assistants who now know him really well which will help him throughout his time at the school, plus some 'mates' in the higher years which is brilliant for a shy type like him.

[FinallyGotAnIPhone]

Au pair (80 quid a week), or before/ after school club (£15 a day), or friends, childminder etc

[Parker231]

Mine went to breakfast club - 7.30am start and after school club - til 6pm. They both loved it - weren't happy if for some reason they didn't need to go. They loved the play time before school and breakfast with their friends and after school club was a snack tea and usually football or craft activities. The school also rang a holiday club which we used when they were younger. As they got older they went to sport related holiday clubs.

[user76895432]

Why would kids hate breakfast club? Both of my DCs go and have done since they started school. It's normal for them and a lot of their friends. Ours costs £4.50 per child per session and runs from 7.45 until 9.00 when school starts. A childminder picks up my DCs when school finishes (3.15) and looks after them until I can collect. She charges £4.50 per child per hour.

[whereiscaroline]

Yes to researching school well - I (naively) picked a small village school which had no pre or post school club, and barely any childminders covered the school. Those that did were usually fully booked. I cried when our childminder quit as it was literally impossible to sort childcare out and I worked full time. Ended up moving DC to another school eventually.

[WhyTheHeckMe]

Thanks so much! I hadn't considered half of this.
It's making me feel much better that he won't feel completely neglected.
I had totally forgotten about childminders!
Do they charge similar to the breakfast and after school clubs usually?

[BandeauSally]

Breakfast club at our school starts at 8am and is 50p

After school club only runs mon-Thursday from 2-4pm for younger classes and 3-5 for older classes. It is £1 per hour.

Local childminders charge between £3 and £5 per hour and most do before and after school care.

[didireallysaythat]

No breakfast clubs here. No after school club until recently. Started with taxis to take DS1 (aged 5) to after school clubs couple of villages away. Occasional confusion when the taxi driver took him to the WRONG after school club, but worked most the time. Then we moved and the school's after school club could only take 20-30 kids, 2 year waiting list for Mondays and Tuesdays, couldn't find a reliable taxi company so ended up changing schools. Now we have after school cover but still no breakfast club. I naively assumed all schools had done kind of pre and post school childcare arrangements. Turns out they don't !

[drspouse]

My DC2 goes to a CM one day a week who does not pick up from my DC1's school. We use the after school club the other days but on that day we have a babysitter to pick him up.

[grasspigeons]

You will sort it but it isn't quite as easy as nursery.
You will either get a childminder, or there will be a breakfast/afterschool club or both. You might find one of you gets to work a little later to fit in.

[WhyTheHeckMe]

User, I guess when I was a kid because I'd not ever had to be looked after I can't imagine anything else.
I loved getting home and watching kids TV or playing out. I have a memory of my mum going to visit family when I was in year 2 and getting held up on the motorway. She picked me up about an hour late and I was sat in my classroom feeling very sorry for myself!
It's just something that's always stuck with me and have visions of that being ds, but times have changed since then and it's good to know clubs are fun!
I guess that since he's been in nursery since 10 months old he will be used to us not being around too much..

Also dh won't ever be able to commit to a specified school pick up because he is based on the road and is often on call

[WhyTheHeckMe]

Wow some of you really have had a nightmare! Things aren't made easy for working parents at all.
I wish my company would allow flexible working. I would happily work really late a few nights in order to make up the time.

[wrinkleseverywhere]

I think the difference, OP, is that your mum was late and you didn't know what was going in. My DC don't know anything different that being collected by me once a week, ASC once a week and the cm three times a week. Occasionally DD will say she wants me to pick her up every day but when I remind her of how things would change if I gave up work to do that, she soon shuts up!
My DC adore the cm. She is a lovely woman and her DC are great fun. She is much better at all sorts of child friendly things (art & craft etc) than I am and seems to have endless patience to play rounds & rounds of things like Grandmother's Footsteps.

[OhTheRoses]

From a working parent whose dc are now 19 and 22.

Independence
Packing own bag
Learning responsibility
Learning to be organised
Observing a role model working, self discipline etc
As your dc get older, mixing with young people through work and being a bit more tuned in
Certainly DS had less problems settling into uni than some of his peers.

The guilt is still shit though !

[coldflange]

Overcome years I used a combination of childminders, breakfast club at school, before and after school clubs based in day nurseries.

It was much easier when DS went into Y6 and school allowed the students to get to and from school on their own.

It takes a bit of research and forward planning OP.

[ceeveebee]

Our breakfast club is £6 per child open from 745am and ASC £13 per child and is open until 630pm. Our twins are there 3 x a week and I have one day off, grandparents do the other day. They always have each other and there are a few others from their class there - they have made new friends there too from other years which is quite nice.

[HeadDreamer]

I use a childminder. She starts at 7.30 but we don't drop off till 8. She also works school holidays and inset days so no need to arrange extra holiday care. DC1 goes 5 days a week, same as nursery. She doesn't hate it. We use our annual leave to cover as much as possible. But we have 2-3 weeks family holiday time where we take annual leave together.

I don't feel guilty however. My mum worked FT and I never had a problem with it growing up.

[HeadDreamer]

Childminder is £5 an hour btw. It's more expensive than after school and breakfast clubs. Much more expensive than holiday camps.

[Squishedstrawberry4]

Breakfast club starts 7.45. No after school care (odd club but nothing reliable). Three childminders close by but the care is shoddy and I would t use it.

[nigelsbigface]

Childminder. Or breakfast/after school club.
Or apply for flexible working for some of the days.