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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to be almost in tears to see my children's term dates for the next year?

126 replies

CatONineTails · 13/09/2017 21:55

Two children, at schools 3 miles apart but in different counties. Each child is at the closest school (by several miles) for their age range.

Every. Single. Fucking. Holiday. is different. Different weeks for October half term. A one week overlap at Christmas but one finishes and starts a week before the other. Different weeks in February. I don't dare check Easter yet Sad

I'm a self employed single parent FFS. How the fuck are working parents meant to manage this? Thats almost 2 months of one or other of the children being off school - it's going to put a serious dent in my income. (Yes I know holiday clubs exist but they're not suitable for my younger child who has Aspergers).

And how the fuck is anyone meant to go from September to fucking Easter with only one week of lie ins?

OP posts:
Andrewofgg · 14/09/2017 11:41

I don't know whether the French still have the same holidays for every school but it gridlocked their roads the first and last weekends when they did. This is one of those hardy perennials which make me glad I am out of the parenting trade.

Original poster
CatONineTails · 14/09/2017 11:44

An au pair Shock

I'm a self employed single parent under financial strain. I don't have a spare room - I rent a 2 up 2 down house and the "living room" is already my bedroom. I can't afford to cover the costs of another adult in the house never mind paying any kind of wage!

Au pairs are as outside my world as holidays Grin

OP posts:
GandolfBold · 14/09/2017 11:52

Its really crap OP. I have three DC's in three different schools and different holidays are a nightmare (2 DC's in city schools, but both different, and 1DC in a county school).

The cheap holiday campaigners don't seem to realise that holiday companies don't live in a bubble. They know what is going on and when children will be on holiday for specific dates. What will end up happening is that holidays will be more expensive over longer periods, so for example instead of a 1 week price hike in October, they will hike the prices for three weeks to catch everyone.

drspouse · 14/09/2017 11:53

I know it is likely to be expensive but would a CM take your younger one occasionally?

Or a student training to be a special needs teacher (universities often have a "job shop", or the local college Childcare students - we have a babysitter who is a student and a lot of after school clubs employ students I know).

My two are school and nursery and the nursery holidays never overlap with school at Easter and sometimes not even at Christmas despite the nursery only taking a week for works closure. And our school holiday club (which is the really only affordable care) isn't open Easter/Christmas/half term - so we are going to be using our DC1's ex-CM for holiday care, but not every day because that's too expensive.

For your older one, can you set them holiday projects? Scout/Guide badges? Volunteering at the library (they take young teens at ours as volunteers)? I'm assuming the normal default is for them to be at home on Netflix while you work - any way they can help you with work (filling orders? entering data? even calling customers to say "your order is on its way" - one of our local primaries has their year 6 pupils answering the phone so it's possible!) so they are less bored?
(I used to mark my Maths teacher mum's multiple choice papers when my holidays didn't coincide with hers).

drspouse · 14/09/2017 11:54

And I agree re holiday prices - the two possible Feb half terms are both astronomical for ski holidays already, and the whole of July.

Ta1kinPeece · 14/09/2017 11:56

I know it is likely to be expensive but
BUT
When the parent HAS NO SPARE MONEY
where will the magic money tree of childminders and au pairs and scouts and holiday clubs come from????

FFS
HALF of ALL ADULTS in the UK earn less than £19,000 a year.
HALF of all Londoners earn less than £26,000 a year.

its the au pair/ childminder comments on MN that show what a bubble many posters live in Hmm

Chocchip88 · 14/09/2017 11:59

Sympathy your way. I'm in a similar position, with DH working in a school less than 1 mile away from the kids' school and having massively different term dates next year. So he gets 8 weeks off next year with no children to look after and I have to take all my holidays to cover them. I married a teacher for a reason. Bitter.

drspouse · 14/09/2017 12:00

A CM is a) a heck of a lot cheaper than an au pair b) a really common childcare solution to holiday care for many parents. The OP has said holiday clubs don't work for their DC2 for SEN reasons, not cost reasons. And you didn't read the word "occasionally", did you?
One day a week to get some work done is not the same as all week for the whole holidays.

Scouts and Guides are a lot cheaper than most other clubs (I am a Guide leader). And I didn't say "go to Scouts and Guides". I said "do Scout or Guide badges". It's pretty common for Guides/Brownies to spend some time in the holidays amusing themselves by gaining a badge. They are designed for the girls to be able to do on their own with minimal expense and minimal input by parents. How is that unrealistic?

guilty100 · 14/09/2017 12:01

Write a letter, expressing exactly what you've said in your first post, and asking what you are supposed to do. Send it to both schools, both local authorities, the local paper and your MP!

coddiwomple · 14/09/2017 12:04

I don't know whether the French still have the same holidays for every school

France is divided into 4 zones (or 5?) for the holidays, so they are spread out, apart from the summer one where exams etc.. are national anyway. Roads are mainly gridlocked because you can only rent from Saturday to Saturday in the summer!

Narnia72 · 14/09/2017 12:09

What a horrible situation to be in.

There might be other parents in the same boat. Can you get together with anyone who has children in both schools, if they're the closest to you there might well be others, and see if you can combine childcare, so, say if there are 3 of you, you all have 3 children for 1 day and can work the other 2. I know it might be more difficult with your youngest, but even if it works for your secondary school aged child - they spend time together at different houses or get taken out, it will spread the load. Must be really hard not to have any other help. I have no family close by who can help, and I've got a little group of friends who help each other like this. It's a lifesaver.

Mistressiggi · 14/09/2017 12:12

As a Scottish parent the idea of dcs being at schools in different counties is unfamiliar to me, do you not have catchment schools that both should go to? If in the same area then the same holidays. Schools might help with transport if that is a problem - suspect might be less of a problem than the non-aligning holidays.

Lovemusic33 · 14/09/2017 12:19

Oh I would love a au pair, maybe they could sleep in a tent in the garden or the cupboard and I can pay them with magic beans Grin

Op, I'm in the same situations as you and it's pretty shit Sad, it's going to make it hard for me to keep my job, I already had to ask for time off at the end of the summer holidays due to dd1 going back a week before dd2, now I'm going to have to ask for extra time off after Christmas and Easter, it's not going to go down well with my boss. We usually go on holiday the 2nd week of the Easter holidays (cheap uk holiday) but this will now be tricky. October half term seems to be the same for both dd's which is good, gives me some time to work out what I'm going to do about the Christmas holidays.

coddiwomple · 14/09/2017 12:24

do you not have catchment schools that both should go to?

If you live on county borders at least, your catchment is geographical so can include schools from 2 different counties. You have to think very carefully where you put the older child, in the closest possible school, or you can't be sure the sibling will go to the same one.

Some counties give priority to siblings, others have stopped doing that. It's a good thing, stops parents renting in expensive place for a year and moving, but taking the space and local kids being stuck!

In the OP's case, it sounds like there's no choice at all, the primary and secondary are simply in different counties if I got that right.

Original poster
CatONineTails · 14/09/2017 12:35

Yes coddiwomple that's exactly it. I live 100 yards from a county boundary and the primary school is our village primary and the only one in walking distance, the next primary school is 5 miles away!

Secondary school however is in a different county. It's 3 miles away but our next nearest is 6 miles away and in a town that we have no direct bus link to. Almost every child from our village primary goes on to this school, I'm not an anomaly and at the school gate this morning the holidays were a concern to a lot of other parents.

OP posts:
Original poster
CatONineTails · 14/09/2017 12:35

I think posters in urban areas have no clue how schools work for those of us who don't have the illusion of choice!

OP posts:
drspouse · 14/09/2017 12:39

We're in a medium sized town but because of the structure of the secondary school system (I posted on another thread) some DCs get no choice but to go to a village secondary school (as the "choice" is grammars they don't get into or church schools they don't get into), again some of these are in one county and some in another.

It's really common!

BoffinMum · 14/09/2017 12:46

Talk to both schools asap and the childcare advisor at the Local Authority (if there is one) and see if there's any possibility of sorting out a workable solution. Obviously this is a pretty awful situation but at the end of the day it's an administrative one and there's always something that can be done. You are not in this alone OP. And you may not need to throw money at it necessarily ... things can and do happen behind the scenes sometimes to help people in your position.

BoffinMum · 14/09/2017 12:47

(A family in the last primary school I sent our kids to got free after school and holiday club, for example).

BoffinMum · 14/09/2017 12:48

OP, is it worth the parents contacting the Local Authority as a group? This sounds like a cockup to me as the LA is supposed to work towards people having a reasonable alignment if they have kids at school over boundaries because of the local geography.

BoffinMum · 14/09/2017 12:49

PPS This is an excellent sad face Daily Mail story possibility, you do realise. Wink Grin

shirtyQwerty · 14/09/2017 13:11

You're being a little unreasonable as surely you should have told the school's what dates suited you ahead of time so that they could work around you.

Mistressiggi · 14/09/2017 13:13

Thanks for explaining Codiwomple. We only have one catchment school (well also a Catholic option if that applies) so your nearest school geographically may not be the one you get a place in. (As is the case for my dcs, but the distances are much shorter as not rural.)

MiaowTheCat · 14/09/2017 13:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Want2bSupermum · 14/09/2017 13:22

notsomuch Parents use summer camps or hire a college student or a teacher. A lot of parents will drop hours during the summer months too with it not being unusual to work 3-4 days with 2 of those days being working from home, plugging DC into the television while working.

If low income there are state subsidized summer camps where you pay nothing on close to nothing. Then there are some school districts like ours that keep school open until the end of the second week of August. The children can get fed, work on school work, read books in the library or do art in the art room.