To think schools should get with the times re working parents.

It reads more like ‘please don’t make another massive job the responsibility for schools without enough staff or funding’ response to me.

So between the hours of 9am and 3pm for 39 weeks a year precisely it is of the utmost importance that children attend for near 100 per cent of the time or, we are told, their life chances will be irreparably harmed and their mental health will suffer.

But should they spend an extra hour in the morning having breakfast on the same premises or an hour or two after lessons playing or crafting on the same site so their parents can earn enough to pay the mortgage their life chances will be irreparably harmed and their mental health will suffer.

Genius!

Exactly this. So many posters seem to be shocked that kids go to school from 9am ish to 3.30pm ish. Like who knew??

It was the same when I was at school and it was the same when my Mother and Granny were at school. This is not a new thing. Maybe midwives need to say after delivering babies ‘right in the September in 4 years time, this baby will need to be dropped off around 8.45am and picked up again at 3.30pm, you and Dad alright with that? Your mortgage will still need to be paid by the way, so you’ve got four years to get your head round this.’

Wow. Take a long, hard look in the mirror. You've just set feminism back about 200 year. false eyelashes and husband hunting relentlessly until you find the right man who can fund a SAHM lifestyle. 🙄

It is not up to school or the state to fund your children. You chose to have them, you either look after them yourself or outsource childcare.

I work in a school, the children are there from 9-3 but the staff are there for at least 8 hours a day if not more, (plus we all do extra work at home).
If we had to cater for the children to attend school 8-6 when would we ever get time for planning lessons, resetting classrooms, updating displays, marking work, completing paperwork, staff meetings, staff training etc? There’s never enough time in a day as it is!

Don’t forget we also have families at home, I want to be able to see my own children, help them with their homework and spend time with them before they have to go to school the next day.

The title of this thread is:
‘To think schools should get with the times re working parents.’

and the people who work in schools are simply saying…
’your childcare is not our problem’.

Perhaps op would have different responses if she’d titled her thread:
’To think that there should be better childcare provision for working parents’.

4.3% unemployment is low, and tells us nothing about the location or aptitude of the people being described. It's vanishingly unlikely that they're all evenly spread within commuting distance of primary schools, for example.

But sure, if you pay enough for it then the jobs will be filled. I think the point at which the disruption might be worth it for me would be about, ooh a hundred grand a year or so? Not pro rata'd either. We all have our price.

However, this doesn't tell us that enough suitable staff would be available for a price that can realistically be paid. I absolutely agree that the roles currently aren't paid enough, but equally it's not a blank cheque either. So let's go with what they pay people doing these jobs in Scandinavia, as this is the example that's been given as best practice. You're still totally guessing at the 'no shortage of applicants' part. You simply don't know.

And part of this is the nature of the working conditions. By their nature, these roles are inflexible. Roles that have got to be done in a set time or place are often increasingly hard to staff.

Is it better for the children to have parents who are unemployed?

Sudden hike in interest rates, global pandemic, war in Ukraine, FFS @working8til4 did you not have the foresight to anticipate all this on a spreadsheet before becoming pregnant! How silly of you. You should have done a graph to calculate the exact moment to have children which would be when you are aged precisely 278yrs!

I’m on your side. Life is unpredictable. Some of these comments are ludicrous.

Educators are closed minded about suggestions?

Suggestions have involved paying staff to run clubs before and after school. Being realistic about life currently in schools is not being closed minded. We can't get staff, we have no money. We barely make it through each day as it is.

No thought for the children.

If the pay and working conditions were right there would be no shortage of workers. Currently 4.3% of UK workers are unemployed.

My DD is a teacher. The workload is horrendous. The only way this would work, is to significantly increase the staff numbers. I think some people think that teachers only work the same hours that the kids are in. They don't. They have an enormous amount of planning and marking to do.

Teachers are under enough pressure as it is without forcing them to work 8 til 6. I don't want my child to spend that long in school each day either. It is your responsibility as a parent to organise childcare. The purpose of school is not childcare.

And I'm not a teacher.

Lots of people mention the model in Scandinavian countries, would you also be happy with the whole system including the high taxes? To have good services they have to be funded. The residents in these countries seem to have a very good social conscious and are happy to pay higher taxes in order that everyone has a better life, less poverty and better services.
It never seems to me that this is how the UK operates, I could be wrong, but to me we follow the US system of capitalism, which is generally based on thinking about yourself and not wider society.

When assessing the affordability of a mortgage, you should have been advised of the impact of it shooting up and considered this as a possibility before taking it, surely?

@working8til4 im in Ireland where wraparound care is lacking in general (but improving) and the school day is actually shorter. However my dc start at 8:40 (finish at 2:20) and I start at 8 officially (as does their dad) we share drop offs we have flexi time and we are lucky their school has an afterschool club that is open until 5:20- this we pay for -it is subsidised by a government childcare scheme so it costs €50-60 per week. I consider this a good set up. It’s not up to the school to provide wraparound care.

Quite. If I did what people suggest I do here, the patients who have waited six months for a clinic appointment with a female doctor, would be waiting a hell of a lot longer as I would be doing the school runs instead.

My point was that for many professionals in good jobs it’s still a huge struggle to fit working life around school hours. Having a decent discussion about that would be worthwhile. Unfortunately a lot of posters here have just dismissed any parents struggling with juggling as feckless! And educators seem to be amazingly closed-minded about any suggestions.

Exactly.

Any obligation at all on schools, which is what OP wants, is creating a new problem and more work in a sector that's already struggling to function. The closest OP has got to telling us how this would work practically is her suggestion that the roles should exist and be offered. She's ignored all the posts asking what happens if and when staff aren't forthcoming.

Full-time NHS Dr here. Sadly in London we can’t pay for nannies and a mortgage. I should have done private!

No understanding here at all that many good jobs which take a lot of qualifications do not fit around school hours!

Let’s be honest, truth is that in the past these jobs were all done by men with wives at home sorting out the school stuff. Society has changed and rightly so, but nobody seems to have thought to change either working hours or school hours to adapt to the fact that MOTHERS NOW HAVE JOBS!

Or does the “getting your shit together” just mean sticking on enough false eyelashes and husband hunting relentlessly until you find the right man who can fund a SAHM lifestyle. No room here for bluestockings or, god forbid, accidental lone parents trying their best.

There is so much contempt on this thread for parents working and providing for their kids.

Well, you'd need to start by picking ones that have the same shortage of workers as we do. It isn't enough to simply say X country manages it. They need comparable conditions too.

Until you've done this, it's very much overstating to say 'it's clearly possible'. You're working on an assumption that people actually want to do term time only shift roles.

I'm very sympathetic to people in OPs position, but her need for a service does not automatically create workers to provide it.

The OP isn’t suggesting teachers provide the extra childcare. Many schools do offer it and it’s usually operated by a private outside company. Why are the teachers on here still unwilling to acknowledge this?

This has been acknowledged many, many times on the thread. But OP isn't talking about wraparound care from an external provider, she has openly said she wants schools to take responsibility for "organising a group babysitting service" for the convenience of working parents. So even if this wasn't staffed by Teachers she wants all schools (which means school staff) to take responsibility for the admin, recruitment, line management, planning and all the other extra work that would go into running a before and after school provision on top of everything else they are already doing. People are, quite rightly, questioning why she feels it is the responsibility of the school, not parents, to ensure her children are supervised outside of school hours. Yes, many schools do offer wraparound so it's odd that it doesn't seem to occurred to OP that those that don't may have good reasons for being unable to do so.

There is a new push on this. My LA have a staff member newly aligned to WRAC, ensuring enough places, sustainability and quality.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/13/before-and-after-school-childcare-what-is-wraparound-childcare/