Is wraparound care (lack of) stopping people working?

[DogDaysNeverEnd]

Following on the another thread where the op was asking about the cost of care. We're in the process of picking a school for reception in September. Both parents work and no family in the area so if we want to work we have to have wraparound. Work can be erratic so whilst it's possible to finish early some days there are others when it's definitely not.

So far 1 school has private provider for £22, another is in house for £14.25 and a third for £17. The first school said they will allocate sessions in July, but may not be able to offer all that we need and whatever we ask for will have to stay the same for the year. The second is fully flexible and can be booked weekly, with emergency cover available. The last one said, sorry, but they may not have any sessions available as there is a waiting list for every day and existing pupils get priority. They said lots of childminders have quit during Corona and this is the impact.

If we don't get in to the second school we cannot both work. Are we just unlucky or are other people having the same problem?

To be fair though, Hoola, it is hard to research unless you live somewhere where there's an obvious school your child will go to. And even then, schools aren't transparent with the information.

I think it varies, depending where you live, and possibly school by school.
Many Nurseries also do wrap around care for local schools - so that might be another option.
Giving up work wasn't an option for us when we moved house, we had to let everybody who we know, know we were looking, and consider different options including both registered and non-registered CMers (I'm going back a bit now, but if the care was for less than a certain number of hours a day, at that point you could do some 'childminding' without being registered - you'd have to check the regulation now of course.). By publicising that we were desperate, we had 3 offers in the end , all via people we knew, asking other people they knew, so weak links, but we found a lovely childminder who just did out of school care.

An old ex colleague was astounded at how much it was going to cost her. Always wondered why they didn’t look at that before having the kid.

A baby or preschooler tends to be the same hours each week for the same amount and once they get to a certain age (either 2yo or 3yo, depending in circumstances) you can get funding.

When they hot school age the costs change, the logistics changes, and its not always possible to research it as you don't know in advance which school they will be going to and even if you have a vague idea of potential schools, you don't know what provision it will have by the time they're old enough to attend, you don't know which childminders (if any) will provide pick up and drop offs at that school. You then have school holidays to contend with where you will need additional childcare, if you've been using school-based wraparound then this care might need to be with an additional childcare provider.

I didn't research childcare costs before having DC1 as my mum said she would look after DC while I worked and we were both happy with that arrangement. I'd been back at work a few months and her financial circumstances changed due to my father's ill health so she had to return to work herself, full time, and my dad couldn't look after DC on his own. I had to use childcare from that point on with Jo prior knowledge of how much it would cost.

It was a huge factor in school selection for us, probably the biggest one. I'm not sure how we'd have coped if DS hadn't got in to an after school club. Child minders are like hen's teeth around here. I couldn't have given up my job, so DH would have ended up working really really split days and weekends which would have been awful for all of us.

At my sons school breakfast club starts at 7:45 and after school runs until 5:30, you have to sign up for five days of either.

Breakfast club is £2.50 per day and after school £8.50, I use after school club, I only need three days but I have to book the full five to gain a place.

Wrap around is easy to access for us as while places are limited, lots of parents don’t use it, so generally anyone who wants a place will get one. The school holidays are the issue, I have my annual leave plus I take my yearly four weeks of unpaid parental leave (which my bank account doesn’t like), but even then I still have more school holiday to cover.

We sold our house, rented, bought, moved schools, could only get after school cover on 2 days a week as the club had 30 spaces for a 450 place school, used taxis and ultimately appealed for a place in a different school. Now I have after school care evey day (which I paid for through out the lockdowns along with other parents to keep the clubs head above the water). No breakfast club as its not finaicily viable. The school plays no part in this process I remember being quite surprised that the state doesn't need to provide anything so you are completely reliant on the private sector (and thus is has to be financially viable).

It was so much easier when the kids went to nursery.

My friend used to run the breakfast club at the local school. It had to ‘stand alone’ financially. So it had to be a commercial success without any help from any other source.
The number is patents requesting that they didn’t pay because ‘it was a one off’ was amusing. Who they hell do they think pays for the facility.
Anyway not sure what happened during covid as I didn’t see her then.
A work colleague kept paying half the bill during covid to keep the private nursery afloat. She was worried without this the place would have to close.

The problem we've always found is that the hours they offer aren't enough. We live on the outskirts of London so realistically our commute is 45mins - 1hr. Which is fine for a 6.30 finish (childminder) but not for a 6pm finish (literally all the after school clubs at every school in the area). We've been paying double what we could have paid for years, just to get the extra half hour of care 🙄😫

We are very lucky that wraparound care restarted at ds's school after it reopened as for some of the schools round here it didn't. Without wraparound care we'd be in trouble- even on the days I wfh (which there are a lot more of nowadays) I'd struggle to get enough work done with ds around without another adult there as quite a lot of the stuff I am looking at is not what you would want to expose a primary school aged child to. I think dh would have to go part time(at the moment he can only wfh one day a week and the four days out are unpredictable in length) and I probably would have to reduce my hours further to shorter days (currently part time 3 days)and/ or do a lot more work at evenings/weekends.
There are only 2 childminders that drop off/pick up to the school and they are obviously fully booked with long waiting list so I don't know what else we could do with no family in the area.

It was something we considered when looking at schools, as we don’t have any family nearby to help with childcare. My first and second choice schools both had on-site breakfast club and after school club, and holiday club. We couldn’t manage without it.

My SIL had a huge stress in September as she had started a new job with no flexibility, then the after school club at my niece’s school announced it was shutting due to lack of take-up. She was only able to keep working because BIL works shifts so he can do some days, and they are near both sets of grandparents who do the rest. If that happened to us, it would be a real struggle.

Yep it can be a nightmare, I just hope the current provider remains in place until I no longer need it.
Cant afford not to work to pay for current life & future pension -
yet working and some of the juggling has given us sleepless nights. No family help. One childminder closed & one provider was closed overnight by Ofsted.
I wish I could have lived in a time where one wage could have covered the outgoings.

I just want to emphasise as well that I'm not even talking about the cost (even though that's a huge issue) but ANY provision - there is 1 school in our area (which we are out of catchment for) that can offer cover to 5:30pm. That's it. And yes, getting the information is a faff. I really feel for parents and kids with additional needs, it's so tough.

Might start an aibu about offering to be a lorry driver in exchange for childcare...

Sounds like it wasn’t Ofsted registered childcare then and it was just the school providing food. UC won’t pay for meals.
Breakfast clubs usually don’t have to register as childcare as they run for under 2 hours a day.
If the school have chosen to register it as childcare they will have a separate Ofsted number for it and it can be used to claim.

My kid’s school has a registered after school provision but breakfast club is just an hour for breakfast so not registered.

That’s what the main issue is that women take it all on, men don’t.

No it isn’t, employers could be more flexible and have a later start time or finishing time to help co inside with schools

Factories could have day workers, as could shops that allow drop offs or early starts for collections.

@Gardeningcreature

My friend used to run the breakfast club at the local school. It had to ‘stand alone’ financially. So it had to be a commercial success without any help from any other source. The number is patents requesting that they didn’t pay because ‘it was a one off’ was amusing. Who they hell do they think pays for the facility. Anyway not sure what happened during covid as I didn’t see her then. A work colleague kept paying half the bill during covid to keep the private nursery afloat. She was worried without this the place would have to close.

We paid full nursery fees throughout, we were fortunate our income was unaffected and couldn't have coped of the nursery hadn't been able to remain open. Good childcare is hard to find!

I’d also check how the schools do settling in. Ours was 2 weeks of alternate 1/2 days and then a few full days before starting full time. I’d been warned to hold back some annual leave to cover but it wasn’t the easiest logistically. I had a friend in one school who had half days for 6 weeks.

But yes wrap around is essential. We’re luckily we have 3-6 covered at school but it was under threat for a while and we were worried. After school nannies are not easy to find and we were running the numbers for a full time nanny if wrap-around wasn’t available.

We’re lucky with our after school club but both schools we looked at seemed surprised when we asked what the after school provision was like and did they have space for the following September. It was a big deciding factor for us

@Hoolahupsaresquare

Yes I think it probably does.

An old ex colleague was astounded at how much it was going to cost her. Always wondered why they didn’t look at that before having the kid.

This is hard- we spent ages costing up children before we had one but you don’t fully appreciate the impact financially (eg of working part time, all the additional costs etc) until you have them. For example I would look at our local schools wraparound policy and think ‘ok £9 a day I’ll budget for that’. By the time they get there 4 years later the cost has increased, your income hasn’t and they have no space to you have to use a childminder at £13 a day instead. That’s one small example of how you can plan but the costs are almost beyond your control!

There is nothing at DCs school. We pay a fortune for a private arrangement 4 days a week, they collect him from school and keep him until 6pm.

I feel like hardly any mothers at DC's school work. I managed to negotiate one early afternoon each week to collect him and what I see at the school gate is almost exclusively mums with younger children in tow. I'm the only one picking up from his class who is recognisably wearing work clothes.

It's also evident in the school's activity calendar where all of the "book look" days, bake sales and both showings of the nativity play are scheduled for 2pm! DH is having to take a day's annual leave to go and see it because we haven't been able to attend a single school event so far this year. We feel completely out of the loop. None of it works very well for working parents.

My DS has SEN and there is NOTHING. His school has nothing at all, he used to go to a CM but we had to take him there and now she doesn't take after school children. His possible next school also has no after school care and if he goes in a taxi they will ONLY drop at home and if he doesn't it's 45 min each way. He needs hands on care so we can't WFH effectively if he's there. No holiday club will take him without a 1:1 and they won't find one and we can't.
Basically we are supposed to sit in a box while he's at school and do the cleaning and wait for him to come home.

There was nothing when my kids were at primary, no regular family help and my ex's job was far too busy to do a school run - ever. No before or after school club, and no childminders that picked up from the rural primary. Hence I had to get a poorly paid job that fitted around the pick up times. The system is appalling!

Basically we are supposed to sit in a box while he's at school and do the cleaning and wait for him to come home.

Pretty much what I do.

I gave up a career in R&D where I was in line for fast track to a senior position and would likely have been on around £50,000+ by now. Instead I'm on £67 a week Carers Allowance so it's a bloody good thing DH has a decent job and we can afford for me to not work, I'm fucked if we ever split up though.

I don't work at the moment as there is just no childcare for my autistic children. No wrap around. No holiday schemes. There's some short break funding if you qualify for it, but nowhere to spend it. The only option for us would be a nanny, which is difficult to source when you only need wraparound and you need someone experienced with SEN. It's shit and I find people really don't understand why I don't work.

It's awful here. I am a single parent and I can't increase my hours or go for promotions because I barely have childcare for the 3 days I work.
My parents essentially double up as breakfast club, but they really don't want to do it.
No breakfast or after-school provision, one over-subscribed childminder to serve the school.
The disparity is rubbish.
I read somewhere that schools in Wales offer breakfast clubs in every school. Does anyone know if that's true? not that I can move to Wales