Term Holidays Childcare

[psha1603]

How do people arrange for childcare when there is no school? My son will be starting school this September and we have no family here. So do you take off from your work? Or look for a child-minder for that duration?
Curious to know how people manage it.

We take days off and don’t get much time off together. We do send ours to grandparents for a few days over the summer - they live 100 miles away and like the time with the kids.

Other than that -holiday clubs, parental leave

Childminders may offer holiday only care - you’d need to ask around. Or holiday clubs.

There are usually holiday clubs available to book in advance. Sometimes schools run them and sometimes organizations run sports clubs, etc. If you already know a childminder that’s always a good idea- worth asking.

We do a mix of holiday clubs / one of us takes leave/ both take leave. Our DD usually goes to holiday club for about 4 or 5 weeks in the year. We don't have family to help locally. It can be a bit of a logistical nightmare but we try to plan it (on a spreadsheet!) at the start of the academic year.

I pay for holiday club or take annual leave. Most holiday clubs run 10am - 3pm (£20/day) near me but if I pay an extended fee (£40/day) then it's 8am - 6pm

Its a nightmare. The summer is OK, as though its the longest holiday, theres loads of things on. Half terms are really tricky.
Search around for what is available - private schools often have good holiday clubs which are open to all, even if they don't widely advertise them. If your son has been at a nursery, they might do holiday care in the first year he's at school, which is often the hardest as many places don't take 4 year olds.
We would have one week off together as a family in the summer, do half the half terms each (usually a full one each and half the days of the summer term one but sometimes could get some days of holiday club), a week off together at Easter, patch together Christmas (thankfully my work shut down between Christmas and New Year), and thats all the leave gone just about.

Thanks all. so looks like holiday club, leave from work and child minder it is. I will have to search for child minder and holiday club. Don't have details of them as he has been going to full time nursery till now.

I take all my annual leave during school holidays. Luckily my work shuts for the whole Christmas period which is the hardest time to find childcare. So I get that off. Then I take May half term off, at least a week in the summer holidays and a week at Easter.

My ex husband works as a train driver so often has days off during the week, he will have DS on all his days off in the school holidays.

The rest of the time is a combination of family help and holiday club.

We do the same as others - some days with the childminder who normally just has them after school, some holiday clubs if we can get places, some annual leave, some childcare swapping with other parents and some begging gps for help.

It is stressful as it always feels a bit cobbled together.

Mix of holiday clubs and AL or Dh will take school age one with him (he’s self employed).

Holiday club in normal times is 3 days a week and then I have off Fridays and then Dh or I take off the other day depending on who is most busy. I’m the only one who gets paid leave (as Dh is self employed), so often that is me but depends on the day.

Honestly, I’ve never come close to using up all my AL yet and usually carry the max over every year, so it works well. And still have plenty of holidays.

We normally split our holidays and used holiday clubs. DD loved her childminder but a full day was too boring for her.

We had normally one week Easter or May half term together plus 2 weeks Summer holiday. The rest was taken by whover had time.

Unfortunately lots of clubs here only do school hours, while our childminder was happy to do a club run it would only work if she had only DD or several of the children went to the same club. We normally stuck with the few ones who did 8-6.