How do you manage childcare for the holidays when you work full time?

[delilabell]

I'm looking at moving from a term time only job to an all year round job.
I have 2 children 11 and 7.
Myself and my husband would get 27 days each holiday.

If you're in a similar situation how do you manage things?
Thanks :-)

Mix of holiday clubs, taking time off, doing childcare swops with other parents, paying a teenager to entertain them whilst we WFH and then just days where they entertain themselves whilst we WFH. Always fun!

Coming at this from a slightly different angle, OP - but I found when my DC were younger, SAHMs covered a decent chunk of the holidays for working parents. I often had friends' children in the holidays - it was fine so long as they got on with my children ok. The working parents often didn't have local family, and it was just nicer for everyone if the children were all together. Would that be a possibility? You could always offer some kind of day out/treat in return (I never expected anything in return - tbh it was easier in some ways if all my children had others to play with as well, rather than just annoying one another for sport).

I'm allowed to work from home during holidays to be there for the kids, I'd do that with children same age as OP but with my youngest, he goes into clubs etc

I work 4 days and DH full time. DD has just gone to school nursery so we’re only just getting the impact of the school holidays - previously childminder would open at least some of the holidays and I did fewer hours anyway so it was always manageable.

For this half term DD’s former childminder is going to have her for 2 days, I’ve taken 1 day annual leave, DH is going to use up some time in lieu to have her one day and then I’m off on Friday anyway. The school do seem to have a good holiday club option which is cheaper than the childminder so we may look into that going forward, I just wanted her to be a bit more settled in school before we introduced that.

I am lucky that outside of a few set meetings and events my work is really flexible and I do have some wiggle room so when it comes to longer holidays I can imagine there will be times when I work early mornings/ late evenings around her, DH’s work less flexible but he does have the option to build up time in lieu so tries to do that when he can to give us the odd day back where needed.

Personally I would keep your term time job!
It has caused us so much stress over the years. Last academic year dh and I had 1 week off together to try and cover the holidays, and it still wasn't enough. Grand parents also helped. Holiday clubs not an option for us as for some reason none of them open past 3pm, and I work until 5pm.

I used to advertise the school holidays as a temporary full-time job for university / college students. Usually student teachers or student childcare types. It worked out really well.

If you work for the NHS the annual leave entitlement is quite good.

I'm a nurse and a single parent, I used holiday clubs, annual leave and my parents helped when they could.

My DH and I both buy an extra 5 days annual leave through salary sacrifice each year. Any weeks that are not covered by us with annual leave (sometimes together, sometimes taking turns) we use holiday clubs. There's a good range around us and you can generally find one to suit all interests ( sports, science, arts and craft, etc).

Is it essential you leave the term time only job? We have 1x ft worker and 1x term time worker in our house and its such an incredible blessing to know that all school holidays are covered.

You will have more than enough annual leave between you to cover school holidays. Most kids I know also go to holiday clubs.

School holidays is at least 60 days. That's taking off days for any Bank Holidays which fall in them as I have assumed OP or Her DH would be off then.

They get 27 each.

So short by 6 days, minimum, and that's the OP and her DH never having a day off together.

Factor in that some workplaces don't let you be off at certain times or face "shut down" days onto you, and that secondaries often have Inset days (usually 3 per year, per school).

It's really quite clear that they do not have more than enough. Far from it.

@SecondUsername4me , sadly for my mental health it's looking like the only option. 2 weeks ago I got attacked and its been the final straw to me working in education