Summer Holidays - Holiday clubs

All issues that need to be sorted. But the school calendar has been the same since 1944. When you had a single income family. The dad would go out to work, mum would drop off at school, go and do whatever she needed, and then pick up the kids. The long holidays weren’t an issue because mum didn’t work. That isn’t the case now and it needs to change.

Simple as 😂

The education budget can barely afford teachers for the term arrangements we have now. Many schools are running big deficits, plenty of LA are verging on what would be bankruptcy if they weren’t bailed out by virtue of being public bodies. There is absolutely no chance that schools can afford extra teachers or extra teacher hours or substitute teachers or to further piss off the teachers currently working. Nor is it nearly as simple as you’re describing to have a supply teacher just “take over” - what supply teacher? Who’s planning that work? Who’s dealing with parents over it - most parents don’t like their kids having cover staff when the teacher is actually sick, there’d be an awful lot of complaints about the teacher being on a beach while their kids had a supply teacher! Not to mention the impact on holiday prices and availability for families if kids only get six weeks off a year - imagine the attendance complaints then!!

When are you repainting the corridor, gutting the kitchen or doing a four week roof repair?

Plus, as someone who actually has kids, I can tell you lots really are knackered ant the end of terms and really do need longer holidays than a working age adult.

I’m all in favour of proper holiday childcare being available - but if it actually was “simple as” then it’d have been done by now wouldn’t it.

I had sensible 16 year old cousin to stay for a week last year and paid her the hol club rates. Everyone v happy but my god it was not a cheap option - as OP says they also needed things to do and those cost.

I think age 10-12 is quite stressful (maybe 10-13 if child/ren less mature). Getting too old for organised stuff. Too young to roam unsupervised for ages!

I will start by saying I don't want the holidays to be shorter as I think the kids like the break but I do find it hard to juggle childcare in the holidays. I work full-time and since COVID the amount of holiday clubs available has dropped a lot. 3 I used in the past have closed and didn't reopen. One is 8-6 but £80 a day and I can't afford that every day. We use one that is 8:45-3 but it means I cannot go to the office on those days (45min commute each way on a good day). I have to be in 3 days a week. I am lucky in that my DH works from home so basically the kids end up at clubs on my WFH days and at home on my office days. I then go to work really early so I can finish at 3:30 and get them out the house after that. If we both had to be in the office we would really struggle.

I don't know what I'll do next year as the clubs here only take up to age 11. DD will suddenly be left home while ds still needs to go to clubs. Neither will be happy!

When I was little, I went to a holiday club that ran 8-6 throughout the school holidays.

Where I live now, holiday clubs run for a couple of hours a day, and not everyday at that. It's absolutely rubbish.

Simple as?

There is a huge shortage of supply teachers and the ones there are, often can't teach, can't manage behaviour and can't even communicate clearly in English in some cases.

No Head is doing more of that then they absolutely have to.

I couldn't enjoy a holiday if I was coming back to that!

It's the mental load though isn't it? DH is a decent dad and does more than his share of ferrying about and pays more than half BUT he will not book anything. All these things involve advance booking, forms, equipment, lunches, age restrictions...

School holidays should be shorter, full stop.

13 weeks is insanity when most people have 5 weeks annual leave. Even between two parents working full time, that’s 3 weeks without childcare, and assuming the family never want to go on holiday together.

it’s such a big off putting factor as someone who doesn’t have children. I also don’t buy into such long breaks being needed. The only reason children get tired towards the end of term etc, is because they’re used to these endless breaks. Holidays should be cut in half, a few long weekends here and there to split between term times. BUT, I also believe that teachers should be given proper annual leave. Not the breaks they have now, which are usually used to plan and work. They should have three weeks that they can take, and a substitute teacher takes over. Simple as.

Those are the branded ones like Supercamps. If you're trying to encourage a reluctant attendee it does help if the offer and coaches are good though.

Some of the cheaper ones, DD refused to go back a second day (she is neurodiverse though).

I have found a wonderful alternative which teaches kids to cook properly. Also not cheap, nor nearby however!

Clubs around me (London) are very good and have flexible timings but they cost £60-70 a day.

Increasingly schools here have 5 weeks' summer hols and 2 week Oct half term. Makes sense in areas where many parents need or want to visit relatives in other countries.

What people forget is that a lot of UK school buildings are falling to bits. I know our facilities and IT guys will spend a huge part of those 5 weeks mending and painting everything they can and doing stuff you can't do with thousands of people there like roofs and drainage.

And also, sending them to a club they don't like and then paying through the nose through it is awful.

What others said really.

I'm in London - round my way clubs cost from £25/day through £70/day. There is a lot of availability but quality is patchy and kids want to be with their friends so there is a lot of piecing stuff together and it's shite if most of them want to go to (true story) an art club four miles away - in London terms it may as well be on Mars - that runs 09.30-14.00.

Flexible working / grandparents is the biggie.

HAF funded places are all 10am-2pm in my borough, which is next to useless.

We're broadly ok because my work is flexible and we can throw money at things but I still have a seven year old come to work with me (self employed) once a week at least.

I think you must be in a relatively low cost area of the country. The clubs are £60 per day here plus an extra £10 to get 8-6 coverage.

Yes, mine do. One loves them, the other is a bit pickier but does also enjoy them

How would you split them up though and how long would the holidays be in this scenario as people seem to forget that schools use the summer holidays for large scale maintenance work to be carried out on the buildings or grounds.

We've got plenty of options but they're not all day - DC are at a sports one today that's 9-3.30pm so I'm taking my "lunch break" at the end of the day so they don't just sit on screens for an hour+ or annoy each other so I have to keep intervening. I've got the flexibility to do that but the knock on effect is that the stuff I usually do on my lunch breaks - pick up essentials from the shop, exercise, clean up - all gets shoved to either end of the day when I'm knackered! The only option nearby that does a full day which I need for my office day is £45 a day each. I'm lucky I only have to go in one day a week. We can afford it but it's still a lot on top of wraparound care costs during term time, at least with private nursery they had long hours and I didn't have to make packed lunches!

Leave has to be shared fairly across colleagues - we've got 3 parents and then 2 people married to teachers in our team, all of whom want time off during the holiday and then 28 days leave doesn't stretch far over all the school holiday. Luckily the colleagues without kids/teacher partners are happy to cover and go away when it's cheaper! Parental leave is great but it's unpaid, lots of people can't afford to not get paid for a week or two.

Holidays aren't a huge problem for us as my husband is a SAHD, plus we're in a big city with lots of clubs, and we can afford them, but I am genuinely shocked that it's not obvious to you that holiday childcare would be a problem for a lot of people 🤔

Lots of employers genuinely can't offer flexible working as they need to cover specific hours. Lots of parents commute to work. I'm sure that there are plenty of areas outside the big cities where there isn't much childcare provision. And if parents are on minimum wage they would struggle to pay for it anyway (unfortunately most clubs are more than £30 a day).

(Edited for typo)

It’s not insurmountable for me either. My children both struggle with school, particularly my eldest, so I love the summer holidays. I don’t want them to be shorter because my children need the break, they are less stressed and I do enjoy the time with them. I also think the long holidays are a major reason why some teachers stay in the job and we can’t afford to keep losing good teachers. I like to be organised and plan what we are doing some time in advance. I don’t find it a massive problem. The only issue with that is my exh who takes ages to confirm when he wants his time with the kids.

We are lucky around here that there are some decent holiday clubs that run 8am - 6pm. But many of them do just run 9-3. Mine don’t love going but I’ve found one which they don’t hate at least. It’s helpful that my two will go together so they know someone. Although I will have to find another club in a couple of years as my oldest is 10 and the one they are at today stops taking them at 11 and I doubt I would leave him all day by himself by then.

I find a lot of the holiday clubs are sporty ones. People assume that children all love sports, particularly boys.

I use childcare vouchers for the holiday clubs so the same amount comes out of my salary every month, so I don’t miss the money. I save it up so paying for it isn’t a big shock. I know these aren’t available for new joiners.

The rest I juggle with annual leave, occasional help from my mum and my exh covers some time too. My mum helps me with a couple of school pick ups a week in term time but I wouldn’t ask her to have them all day during the holidays, it would be too much for her, and my ex in laws definitely wouldn’t manage.

I’m lucky in that I have never struggled with getting the time off work that I need but that’s probably because a) I book it some time in advance and b) plenty of people in my team don’t have school age children so they prefer time off at other times of the year.