What childcare / getting to school options do we have?

[speedywotsit]

Need some help seeing the obvious here....

I work full time, set hours 8-4, 30 mins drive away. Niche job. No other options available. Love my job.

9yo autistic son goes to SEN school 1.7miles away in opposite direction to work - leaves 8.45 and returns 3.55 with DH who gave up work a few years ago when things were REALLY bad in mainstream school and we were all falling apart.

Dh has applied for a full time job now things are really settled for DS. He would need to be out the house 7.30-5.00. Getting his career back is really important.

Major stumbling block....DS around school times. I can drop 1 day and a bit of family help another day but we would struggle for 3 days a week

• not eligible for school transport, would need to go in the car
• too far for DS to walk safely. We would never let him walk alone anyway
• no wraparound care. Not a thing at SEN schools

I'm thinking our only option is some sort of childcare person to sit in our house for an hour before school and after....is that a thing? And do a school run in the car to a SEN placement....with SEN experience...do such people exist wanting this sort of thing?

DS is going to really struggle anywhere except home and school and with new people so needs to be stable

Am I missing something obvious?? Is this a disaster and it'll be my turn to give up work now....

@SinkGirl

Ask the teacher whether any of the TAs do care work outside of school. We’ve just asked as we’ve been awarded a generous (!) 8 hours of carer time a week in school holidays and the school have said yes they do so we are waiting to hear whether anyone can help.

Are you absolutely sure you don’t qualify for school transport? It’s very unlikely you don’t unless there was a closer suitable school, but even then there would have to be a serious cost discrepancy for them to refuse. Try speaking to SENTAS to make sure. Unless of course you agreed that you would transport if they named the school? They can’t hold you to this as your circumstances have now changed. If that’s the case definitely get advice.

That’s not true. OP has said she lives 1.7 miles away from school. You need to live at least 2 miles away in primary to qualify for transport, 3 miles for secondary.

As a different option has dh thought about continuing with the tutoring? I know someone who does this and whilst she only started off with a few hours it really snowballed after a few years to the point she is now full. She also tutors kids that are out of school for various reasons during the day

@Pepperminttea16 transport rules for SEN schools are different, or at least they used to be. When I worked in SEN we paid for a child’s taxi who lived less than a mile from school.

I don’t think people realise how hard childcare for sen kids is. As op has noted special schools don’t do before or after school clubs, if a child gets transport then they will only drop off and pick at home address so you can’t use a childminder even if you could find a suitable one, childminders tend to pick up groups of children at a mainstream to make it worthwhile so there’s no childminders who’ll do pickup at an sen school as they’d only be getting one chills, holiday clubs if they need additional support are over £100 a day and even then usually finish at 3

Oldscrappyabdhungry- the rules on miles are the same but you can apply for exceptional circumstances so for example if the route was assessed as dangerous for the child to walk. They wouldn’t give transport because you were working. Sen transport seems like it is made to make life as difficult as possible for parents, I know of cases where transport wouldn’t even change times to 10 mins earlier a day so parent could get their other child to school on time, instead they were told they had to drag both kids out first thing and take the nt to breakfast club which they have to pay for as if the taxi came 10 mins earlier it would be an extra 50p a day

That’s not true. OP has said she lives 1.7 miles away from school. You need to live at least 2 miles away in primary to qualify for transport, 3 miles for secondary.

It is true, actually.

You are talking about transport due to distance. Transport for SEN is completely different. Most children with significant enough needs to attend a specialist school qualify for transport even a short distance away. The only issue is whether there’s a nearer school that could meet needs as then they can legally get out of it.

I’ve used an organisation called Driving Miss Daisy who specialise in providing driving and support to disabled and elderly people - getting them where they need to go, supporting them there and getting them home and sorted out whilst home. E.g. I went shopping with them, they drove me there, pushed the trolley for me, brought me home and carried the bags in. They would have put the shopping away if I wanted and apparently always make my mate (who uses them too) a cuppa when they drop her back.

They advertise getting kids to school as something they do and operate all over I think so could be worth a try.

drivingmissdaisy.co.uk/

childlawadvice.org.uk/information-pages/transport/

@Luckypoppy

Is there a teaching assistant at school who may want some extra hours paid as a Personal Assistant? That could definitely do the start of the days although the end of the days may be an issue with staff meetings etc.

They would almost certainly not want to do that because it puts them at risk of safeguarding accusations and the extra cost of the necessary insurance would probably be prohibitive.