No idea which board this should go on - what working arrangement would be best?

[Skewbaldpony]

I’m a teacher. I have two children, one a baby and one due to start school September 2025. I will be back at work May 2024.

Before I went off on maternity leave, I worked three days a week. I don’t like it much for all sorts of reasons.

However, wraparound care options here are very limited and I’m debating whether to bite the bullet, go back FT and enroll DC in a local prep school where the school day is longer. (We were probably going to go for the independent route for senior school.)

I don’t have to make any firm decisions yet but could do with knowing in the next few months so I know what to ask for when I return!

Nothing wrong with working FT and if you think it would suit you better than 3 days, then go for it.

I'm not sure prep is the only solution- you'll need childcare for the baby full time, so I'd look at local state schools and see which childminders do drop/collects from them and see if they have space to take the baby ft and the elder one wrap around.

What would be the childcare for the baby?

Baby will be in nursery. Childminders are like hens teeth here and also I don’t have a huge amount of confidence in them - that isn’t a judgement on all childminders, it’s just an honest response based on what I’ve seen out and about, I wouldn’t personally be happy leaving my children there.

What would you do during the holidays? Would dc have longer holidays than you?

Would a nanny be about the same cost as ft baby childcare and prep school fees? They would do all the kids meals and kids laundry too.

Good question private school holidays do tend to be much longer.

Only slightly and they do run holiday sessions, which aren’t particularly expensive. We could probably cobble something with DH wfh / his parents in any case but as a last resort!

The worry with a nanny (as with a childminder) is managing their illness or when they leave or have a baby … literally no one I know has a nanny and they aren’t really hugely plentiful here. Sorting tax and what not also seems a pain!

It would probably work out really well then. A friend went back to work full time and it worked out only slightly more expensive to put dc into prep school than to have wrap around care (she would have had to use a nanny as her hours didn't quite fit with local childminders and all nurseries were full)

Good to know it isn’t just us! It is such a lot of money but seems worth it in a way to have that particular headache out of the equation so to speak.