Parents of primary school children who work long hours - how does it work?

[NewMum0305]

My little one will be starting reception in September and as my husband and I work until around 5.30, we’ll need to be using some kind of wraparound care. But I can’t quite work out how it will work in practice in terms of things like homework (when she’s a bit older)? Do we squeeze it in between getting home and bed, bearing in mind she’ll need food as well? Or save it all for the weekends?

For those who use wraparound care with younger primary age children who get homework, what is your routine like and how do you fit everything in?

What???

Like hundreds of thousands of people, we live in a commuter town. Walk to station, train to London, walk to work. More than an hour. Our jobs only in London. If you like, prioritised our kids by living in an area where we could afford a big enough house with a garden, rather than a London flat, say.

School called us for a sick kid maybe once a year. Would be disproportionate to base our lives round that.

Can you both compress your hours? That way she'd be home earlier at least 2 days. I'd batch cook so she can have her dinner as soon as you get in, especially if she is a slow eater, then push bedtime routine back till 7pm. Use the dishwasher and tag team so one does a quick tidy up, other does homework and then one if you does the bedtime routine. Mine at that age had common words to learn, phonics and some numeracy work as well as a book to read. We'd do it in stages if they were tired or leave to the weekend.

I'm a childminder, I pick a few reception kids up (including my daughter) and I do their homework with them and give them tea - I leave the reading to do with parents but there's often an activity or a bit of phonics we do together. I'm a qualified teacher so works well for us and the parents are happy with it. Anything like a school project I'd give the parents the option to do it with them or leave for parents if they preferred (wouldn't want to step on toes) but that hasn't come up yet.

Our ASC doesn’t supply a meal, just a snack. So they often are hungry. On days we are both working (thankfully I mainly finish early) pick up is at 5.45pm. We pay for our KS2 child to have school lunches so that they can have a sandwhich at 6pm and have an hour and half at home.
We don’t honestly do a huge amount of homework, but school view it all as optional. So we do maths practise at the weekend instead. Reading we do everyday as part of the bedtime routine.

“I really don’t understand why people do not consider childcare arrangements before having children.”

Of course we bloody well thought about it. Just because we didn’t come to your approved conclusion doesn’t mean we didn’t.

It didn't for me I had to leave my industry and go PT in a school sacrificing a decent salary in the process. School holidays were a major issue for us.

I hope to return once children are teens at academy.

Ds2 just started reception in September. We pick up at 5.30 from childminder, back by 5.45. We're really struggling with the home work - even reading. He's had a really long day by the time he gets home in the evenings and just wants to relax. He really objects to have to read or do maths after a long busy day. I read a couple of bedtime stories.

Thank you all. It’s a good point about making sure it’s not just me changing hours etc and talking to my husband about him compressing hours as well so we could have early pick-up at least two days a week.

I live in a commuter town so it does take me about an hour to get home. And no, I unfortunately did not consider the nuance of after-school primary care when deciding to have a baby..!

Hi, can I ask why?

DS (6yo, Year 2) goes to after school club and we can collect up until 6pm, but try to get there for 5:30ish if I'm WFH - it's later if its my office day though. On office days I also have to use before school club and drop him at 7:30am. He enjoys it as he sees it as a time to play with friends. After school club includes a tea for DS, so we don't need to worry about dinner for him on those days (its usually a small tea, similar to what you'd expect from nursery) and we just do a quick top up snack when we get in (sandwich, yog, toast, porridge etc.). DH and I cook ours and eat together once both kids are in bed. Both our kids are in bed with light off by 7:30pm.

Homework is really minimal at primary so I wouldn't worry about that. We get 'homework' on a friday and we make sure to do it all at the weekend. In the weekdays, it's really just making sure you read/they read to you from phonics books etc. We do this as part of bedtime story so it doesn't add any extra time.

We used to get home about 6, dinner at 6.30pm then bedtime routine for lights out at 7.30-8pm.

Homework was always done at ASC with the assistants there in both of my dcs schools.

@Dyslexicwonder I totally agree with you. BUT lots of working mums I know feel guilt in the way many (not all) dad's don't. And comments from the poster I was responding too are part of the problem. As though you're a bad mum for wanting a career. Such comments wouldn't be made on a site for dads.

I’m really pleased to see this thread. I started a thread about whether it’s possible to have a third child and a career and the responses mainly made me feel like it wasn’t even possible to have one child and work full time because of the necessity of picking your child up from school every day. This was even though my husband can actually do it some days!

Anyway OP, DC1 is in reception. We have a nanny who collects him 4 days a week and DH does it one day. The nanny/Dh gives him and DC2 (who is 3) their dinner at 5.15. I get home at 5.45 and we play and do music practice, bathtime and stories. He goes to bed at 8. His only homework so far during the week is reading which I do as part of the bedtime story routine. He gets more homework/craft type stuff over the holidays. It’s totally manageable so far.

IME you will all need a little breather midweek, Friday homework can be done on a weekend. I worked 9:30-2:30 on Thursdays and made up the hours on the days DH was at home, so did 7:30-5:30.

Eg: FT working hours when Dd was still on primary were:
Mon 9:30-5:30 (ASC)
Tuesday 7:30-5:30 (DH @home)
Wednesday 8:30-4:30 ( friend did school run)
Thursday 9:30-2:30
Friday as Tuesday

I hope that helps

@NewMum0305 is there any option for you and DH to do slightly different hours? I do drop off and start at 10 and DH goes into work early, then he does pick up from school at 5pm and I work later.

Reading we do at bedtime and we plan the rest for the weekend. I batch cook or we have a lot of tortellini with carrot sticks and cucumber.

We are in a commuter town to London so our poor neglected children do have to wait more than an hour for us if we are sick, but the roof over their heads helps soften the blow 😉

DH did the drop off at nursery/school breakfast club and I did the collecting from after school club. DT’s hated if I collected early as they enjoyed the time playing with their friends.
Life was busy but totally manageable and worth it

I don't think those are unusually long hours to work.

We used a childminder before and after school. Saved homework for the weekends if we could, squeezed it in if we couldn't. You can do times tables in the car or at the dinner table, reading at bedtime. If you don't start until 9 you can probably squeeze something in before school, we did that sometimes.

Regarding supporting your DD with homework, by the sounds of things that won't be an issue for a while if she arrives at school with basic reading skills already under her belt and presumably able to count to 10. Most schools have signed up to a new phonics reading system which means that even the children who are already reading Charles Dickens will be given very basic books in Reception/KS1. It takes DD literally 10 minutes per week to read the two books that come home from school and for me to check her comprehension/prediction etc.

DD still reads to me every night but rather than it being an arduous homework task it's just a nice cosy part of bedtime where we enjoy books together. It's quality 1-2-1 time that you'll want anyway.

Once homework does become a thing it can be done at after-school club or whatever wraparound care you do organise.

We do our homework usually on weekend (primary school) but read every night. I'm a teacher and it's manic in term time I can't lie!

Our reception had a staggered start until the first half term. This meant we couldn't use the local after school club as the kids started off on about 2 hours a day working up to a full day (several years ago). The staff said the kids would be very tired doing a full day even though some kids were already used to full time nursery provision. Would have been difficult without family. Our school doesn't set much homework and it was easier to leave for the weekend and just do reading etc in the evenings.

Thankfully you don’t have to accept a staggered start and can send them full time from day one. A staggered start would have been a disaster for us - two working parents without family in the uk.

DT’s had started full time nursery at six months and didn’t have difficulty with the shorter school hours. Breakfast and after school club was their playtime so something to look forward to with their friends.

@Parker231 unfortunately I was ignorant at the time but very lucky to have retired parents who could and would pick this up for me. Weirdly in that class there were not many others with two full time working parents so to my knowledge there wasn't anyone staying beyond the times they gave. My DD was the same, used to very long hours from a young age and loved after school club to the extent that when I later went part time she burst into tears as she was going to miss her friends from the other classes on those days!

You can't really predict it anyway because stuff changes.

When DD started reception she was doing 8:50-2:50 and ASC only did 2 Hr sessions so we had to pick up by 4:50pm.

Then in yr 1 she was doing 9-3 and ASC moved to 2.5 Hr sessions so we had till 5.30pm to pick up.

School notified uss during the last summer holidays that they were changing school hours, so now she's in yr 4 doing 8:45 - 3:20.

Might seem like small changes but when you're timing your commute down to the minute and cursing red lights, it matters!