Would you reduce work hours for school pick-up or stay full time?

[Lottiefranks]

Hi all,

I’m looking for advice on what other mums/dads would do in my situation. My oldest is due to start reception in September - I currently work full time 37.5 hours a week. It’s important to me to be able to do drop off and pick up, so I’m considering dropping my hours to 30 per week.

The only thing holding me back is the fact we are in a 2 bed flat and we want to move on to a house so a drop in salary really isn’t ideal.

My boss has offered some flexibility - take a late lunch do pick up and continue working from home after - just not sure whether this will lead to burnout and constant clock watching.

What would you do? If anyone had other suggestions on how to juggle drop offs and pick ups please share. I plan to do breakfast club but don’t want to make my child’s day too long by also including an after school club.

Why do you need to do drop off and pick up every day? Can your partner not do one and you do the other?

It sounds like you have an exceptionally flexible boss.

are you married? Can you both reduce hours to share childcare?

I would try it your boss' way and if it's not working then ask to drop back to 30hrs. That way, you've pleased your boss by trying their generous suggestion but if it's genuinely not working, you'll come across as proactive by asking for adjustment.

Depending on your job, you may find WFH after school really difficult. Often DCs are v tired (i.e. totally ratty) after school and that's when a childminder is good value for money. Realistically, you might not be able to WFH from 4- 6pm b/c pickup time often segués directly into teatime.

Also, depending on your LO's age, they might not start yrR full time. I was caught out by this! Many primaries do a rolling intake for yrR, settling in the older ones first and then adding in the younger ones - sometimes several weeks in to term! This is calculated by the term where their birthdate falls so spring term starting full time after a week or 2 and summer term birthdays starting 2 or more weeks into term!!

What is happening with your younger child(ren)? Where is your DH in all this? (not to be snarky but just wondering about other options/variables)

Wouldn’t it make more sense for either both of you to slightly reduce hours, or one of you start work earlier and work later, the other start earlier and finish earlier to facilitate school without a drop in hours.

Who is the "we"? if you and your partner can share drop offs/pick ups that opens up lots of options, particularly if your boss is happy to be flexible. You could for example do some early starts and maybe one long day, picking up on 4 days? Or maybe use after school club just on one or 2 days?

i think the suggestion to pick up and go back to work is not great. A 4 year old is likely to need supervision which will mean you can't work effectively. And, presumably the reason that you want to pick your DD up from school is not that you literally want to pick her up, but that you want to be able to do things with her after school?

It might also be worth doing the sums and seeing how much financially worse off you would actually be by dropping to 30 hours a week - you might find it's not a great amount.

Thanks for the comments.

For more context around my husbands work schedule, if differs on a weekly basis so sometimes it’s really long days with travel and some weeks local with good flexibility, it’s just not consistent in timings and therefore not reliable. Works well if I take the flexible option as he can step in when able but exactly as some of you have mentioned I want to pick up and then be present - not rushing to get my laptop back on. Plus I start work at 8 - I’ll be working 6 straight hours before taking lunch at which point I’ll be heading to the school - it doesn’t sit that well with me.

I think in my heart of hearts I want to drop hours - however, I manage a team and I feel it won’t go down well at work. The financial loss will also make it harder for us to move to a new home. So, I’m torn.

I like the sound of the 1/2 longer days - thanks for this. I’ll look into that more and see what I can come up with.

I would see how things go with the afterschool club, your dc may enjoy it, mine went to afterschool club full time when I was full time and wasn’t a problem

I went part time and can drop and collect every day, as DD is with me all afternoon generally.

Money can't buy the time back.

I think never having a "proper" lunch break, even while wfh when you could do some household chores - in order to pick up a 5 year old and then get back to work 5 days a week is a tough call. What will the 5 year old do for the couple of hours of work you still do? She may well have more fun playing with her schoolfriends at ASC. I think a couple of days of ASC and a couple of using your lunchbreak would be a better balance, particularly if your DH can do some of the pickups in practice.

Memories won’t keep you warm if your pension is clobbered.

I manage a team and dropped to 30 hours without issues because of wanting to be as present as possible. I do 4 drop offs a week (DH does 1) and 3 pick ups (DH does 1 and MIL does 1). So really there are only 3 days a week when I finish early. This gives me a little flexibility to fit in a couple of lunchtime gym sessions. We have been lucky not to need to use after school club as DS would have struggled with the longer day but some kids are absolutely fine with it.

I have definitely found it harder with school hours/holidays than when he was at nursery for 50 weeks a year with the ability to collect anywhere between 5pm and 6pm though.

As you say full time would always mean clock watching and it can be difficult to settle back into work when you get back from the afternoon school run with kids there. I can hop back on now if something is urgent but DS is in year 5 and it would have been difficult to do anything when he was younger.

Your husband is entitled to request changes to his work pattern as well. Could he more regularly schedule the different kinds of days so that there was some routine around them?

I used to work a similar work pattern and, whilst fantastic for maximising time with your DC, it's very hard going on you. You drop your child off at breakfast club, go straight into work mode (if you have a longish commute, you may be ale to use the journey as a "switch point), walk solidly through keeping an eye on the clock because you need to leave by a certain time, switch back into "home" mode, then pick up your child and go straight into catching up with them and doing home things. Basically you never get a break.

I would strongly suggest at least building in a lunch break (30 minutes) even if it means reducing hours further, or if possible, consider working one long day to make it less of a rush between places.

Another thing to note is the 30 hours worked over 5 days may well leave you trying to fit a full time job into part time hours. So, if you go with this option, make sure you have very clear boundaries around what you do and do not do and which of your current responsibilities need to be given to someone else.

My DC1 started reception last Sept.

DH does drop off and I do pick up. I work 80%.

We had a childminder til 6 every day who did pick up etc. Then I had someone who did pick up and supper everyday which worked well. Then they did after school club.