Private school holidays - what do your children do with all that time

I'm a teacher with the same holidays as my kids which is a childcare blessing but that said, 9 weeks day in day out with your own kids... We go away the first two weeks whilst state schools are still going, they do a week of camp each (they're 4 and 8), we have a couple of long weekends away then it's play dates, day trips

Yes I’ve always wondered why they have so much vacation. 2 week half terms in the Autumn, not long after they’ve had a nine week summer! My youngest also has a medical condition, and has averaged 25 weeks out of school over the past few years in prep. With no grandparents alive or any other family support, my old full time career is a long way off. Our prep does run fantastic holiday sports clubs, but unfortunately our daughter isn’t remotely sporty and gets tired very easily, so doesn’t cope with anything like that. But I know lots of parents use them and think they are great. You’ll probably find your prep does similar.

Working full time here and it's a struggle. All their friends leave for most the summer - grandparents, second homes, hols - and the one at secondary won't do clubs without a friend. It's a nightmare.

Every year we wing it one way or another - literally planning forensically with the calendar ahead of time.

I wish I could get summers off.

If you have a spare room consider a summer au pair for 6 weeks during the really long holiday.

Athena , yep. Snap ❤️

AthenaAshton
"Watch crap on YouTube. Play crap on X Box. Post crap on Snapchat and Instagram. Get bored. Argue with one another. Try to argue with me. Fall out with friends online. Make a mess everywhere. The holidays feel very, very long."

Nailed it. So nailed it.

As others have said there is a lot of 'down time' - i.e. extreme slobbing / sleeping . As mine are older this doesn't require my supervision but when they were younger it meant weeks with DGPs and staggered days off by DH and me.

Now they're older we will have:

• 2 and a half week family holiday
• Various holiday courses. All 3 of the DC can choose up to 2 courses (rowing, sailing, academic, cricket etc).
• work experience for 2 weeks (DS1 aged 16)
• mini breaks with DH and DGPs (not all DC at the same time). Includes my climbing Ben Nevis and riding in Wales.

DS2 is getting an electric guitar as a 'good effort' for Common Entrance reward so I suspect he'll be strumming away for most of July. Thankfully (for our neighbours) it attaches to headphones.

All 3 will be dog walking as well to save me paying our dog walker.

So all in all they'll have a good summer.

Library books (avid reader often up past midnight reading), 6 different music courses this year (if you're careful most are relatively cheap & full boarding, just avoid any with the word national in the title), & this year I am determined to get her to be productive in the other weeks setting her jobs for cash etc. The disappointing thing for us is that so many of her school friends are away for pretty much the whole holiday!

Yeah, same as Athena.

This is the first year with the all out of state primary so there will be even more synchronised Doing Fuck All.

Which doesn’t help with your working hours dilemma. They should be able to be at home alone for some of the time. I remember DS2 going to a friends to keep him company - they cooked pizza and oven chips and were fine.

Mine are older now but do not underestimate how tired they are by the end of term, the days are longer and the shorter terms mean that they are often shattered by the end of term and need a few days to recover , i have always tried to let the first week be chilled at home for this reason.As they get older there tend to be things like CCF camp, cricket training, pre season training for other sports in the last two weeks of the holiday and holiday camp.

Same as Athena!

Summer au pair if you have a spare room

I have one at state primary and the eldest at independent, but their holidays aren’t that different fortunately. Eldest goes away to scout camp for the first 10 days of the summer holiday so we work during that time. The school also run sport and drama weeks so he might go to some of those but as he’s now 14 he can be left to entertain himself, which means Snap, Insta and Fortnite.

We also have a beach hut nearby, so are often there and set up a heated above ground pool in the garden which they spend loads of time in.

Holiday wise, we take our main family holidays in the autumn and spring so DH and I operate a tag team arrangement and we also WAH - the boys are a bit older so don’t need much supervision.

One day a week my Dad has them and my Dsis and her kids live on the lane so they’ll go and bother her and hers will come here too.

Used to hire students through childcare.com - they were great company for the kids and the money helped them through uni

Howling at Athena’s description and looks around nervously to see if she’s bugged my house!

We have a student who comes to hang out part time during the holidays so at least they are not left alone all day. It's still a challenge to think of things to get them away from fortnite though.

One of the problems here is that so many of their friends go abroad or away to agreeable second homes for the holidays, so there are fewer for people to hang out with

*muddle sorry

We middle through, off the grandparents for some of it, 2 weeks holiday st the end of August, seeing friends, cousins, netflix! DD has almost 9 weeks summer hols for us to fill. We don’t tend to take advantage of the cheaper summer hols at the start of July because we find it better to go late and have something to look forwards to

Mine is a boarder, so not quite the same.
She also didn't keep in touch with old school friends when she started.
I thought it would be problematic during holidays, but far from it.

Mine just enjoys chilling, her own company, visiting her older brother and fiancee, digging the garden, practising her music, visiting anywhere with grass, fields, and/or long walks.

She will take herself off/ ask family member to go to theatre or cinema with her.
Bowling, out for a Pizza with extended family members.
reading, watching tv, social media etc.

AthenaAshton right on sister!

Love a woman who tells it how it is!

My kids are in private prep with an 8/9 week summer - madness. I'm a Indy teacher though so get same holidays which is great for childcare. We go abroad first two weeks when states are still running to save money. The kids then pick one proper day trip a week (theme parks, zoo etc), I book them into camps for a few days. The rest is play dates, park, time in the garden, seeing grandparents.

It’s a bit of a struggle if you are a working parent... My dd is currently in year 7 and so far I have managed by getting her to do some holiday clubs/courses. The summer holidays will be harder and I am hoping to maybe take some unpaid leave if I can...

Dd only has 1 week more than her brother who is at State Primary

In my experience most parents take advantage of the earlier start to the summer holiday to book cheaper holidays abroad at this time. Which is a pain if you've got another child in the state system as you can't do that, but your child will be finding there's no one around for company those weeks. There are sometimes holiday clubs run at the school or catering for private school kids so they can be helpful those weeks. Preferably gearerd around some particular interest at that age.

I used to try up take a day or two off each week so DD wasn't kicking around on her own too much. I took some unpaid leave one year to help. But these days she's usually out with friends a lot (she's 14 now) so doesn't find them a problem.

And he charges £7.00+ an hour, not kiddie minimum wage.