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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

that school won’t cut me any slack for double drop offs?

539 replies

Polkadotdash · 05/10/2018 15:48

We moved house in the summer and we’ve ended up with three kids at two different primary schools. I accept that it is what it is and we have to just fit in where there are places. However, after a month of nearly killing myself to drop kids off at both schools, two miles apart who start at exactly the same time, I’ve asked both schools if they can help to take the pressure off me by accepting one child five mins early and maybe dropping the late mark drama for the other children. Neither school will budge. One school has a breakfast club which they’ve suggested I use for £5 a day. £25 per week, nearly £1000 per school year for five mins care (no food required). I can’t afford this.
It’s all been capped off today by one parent (who I don’t know) shouting something at me about the importance of not being late when I was trying to make my four year old run up the hill to school. I can’t put up with this for the next 5 years. What should I do? Should the school be more caring?

OP posts:
Villainelle · 07/10/2018 10:43

Can 7 year old get a school bus if there is one?

PhilomenaButterfly · 07/10/2018 10:46

Cecilylollipop man? Haven't seen one of those for 23 years, and that was right next to the school. We live on a main road that we have to cross to get to school. No lollipop man there.

GreenLantern53 · 07/10/2018 10:57

My school has 3 lollipop men. at different crossings. my school definitely wouldnt allow a child of 7 to travel to and from school alone though. when dd needed collecting and i told them my (older) sister would be picking her up they said she had to be over 16!

PhilomenaButterfly · 07/10/2018 11:05

Blimey Maisy, DH's employers take months to provide him with equipment he needs to do his job, no way they'd agree to flexible hours. Besides, he has a 2 hour commute.

CecilyP · 07/10/2018 11:08

Why have we got a situation where breakfast club is free in Wales and in other parts of the UK it is prohibitively expensive- it should be universal.

This must be prohibitively expensive when they're are so many other demands on the public purse. If it is free, it means that it will be used by parents who neither need it for childcare or a bit of free food.

If better structures were in place, her husband's employer was more flexible for example, it was expected it was his concern to, the OP wouldn't need to pay for the extortionate breakfast club.

In many jobs , flexibility is simply not possible. But even if it was, why should an employer be inconvenienced for the sake of 5 minutes. Imagine the conversation, ' I need to start 2 hours late every day because DW, who is a SAHM can't get both DC to school on time!'

A little flexibility us all that is needed.

jamdonut · 07/10/2018 11:09

A bit late to this but....£5.00 for breakfast club!!!!!
Ours is £1.50 !!!! From 8am to 8.50am

jamdonut · 07/10/2018 11:12

Also ‘Early birds’ can go to computer club or dance club from 8:30 8:50 !

Goldenbear · 07/10/2018 11:13

MaisyPops, do you honestly think that the government should have no involvement or no policy on childcare in this country? What would the impact on the economy be if people were not employed in the hours of the school day?

PhilomenaButterfly · 07/10/2018 11:15

Conversely, we've been looking at secondary schools for DD. In one school, if they're 1 minute late they get a detention. They encourage children to arrive for 8 o'clock and have a free breakfast. I bet the whole school does that! 😂

TheClitterati · 07/10/2018 11:16

Aren't your y3 and y6 at the same school? They can wait at the gate by themselves for 5 min surely? It's not like they would be on their own.

Goldenbear · 07/10/2018 11:19

My husband had that conversation with his employer, 'I need to start 10 minutes late everyday as I do school drop off'. Why should they agree? Because they want to retain the skills my husband can offer to the workplace. Equally, they give him a but of goodwill, in return he will be at meetings with clients until 8/9.

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 07/10/2018 11:27

Her year six and year rec are at same school

Tomorrowillbeachicken · 07/10/2018 11:27

In manufacturing you won’t get flexible hours.

Tomboytown · 07/10/2018 11:29

1st drop off should be up the hill. If you drop off 2nd down the hill, it’ll be quicker

MaisyPops · 07/10/2018 11:30

Goldenbear
I don't think the state have a responsibility to ensure school fits around people's work schedules.
School is school. When you have children you know they will either go to school or be home educated. It's not some surprise that creeps up on you (just like having to have childcare through the holidays is also not a surprise). As parents there is a responsibility to sort childcare accordingly.

PhilomenaButterfly
It's not something anyone has to request. There are set hours where everyone has to be in. Beyond that staff can choose how they do the remaining hours. Some of our friends take a 2 hour lunch break to go to the gym. Others get in early but leave bang on the end of core hours to do picks and drop offs. Others get in at 930 having done drop offs but work later to make up the half an hour. It's a good set up.
Another company in our area goes even further and has flexi time for all staff. It sounds madness to me but friends say it works well.
It works for certain jobs. Other jobs it won't work for (e.g. there's no way colleagues are be able to be late to work at school because I'm doing drop offs. They have to use wrap around).

I've got lots of friends who work and their DH/DP work away during the week or qork off shore for weeks at a time. They have to arrange wraparound. That's life.

Beesandfrogsandfleas · 07/10/2018 11:50

I suspect if the fiver a day really is a luxury they can’t afford, them having a stay at home mother to school age children probably is too.

Wouldn’t take many hours of work to earn £25.

Mightymousie · 07/10/2018 12:00

@PhilomenaButterfly my kids secondary did this, non of them would go because it wasn’t cool and barely anyone took it up... they also got detentions for being 1 minute late, but at secondary it’s more the child’s responsibility.

Mightymousie · 07/10/2018 12:03

@misshippi yes the child in your class suffers twice. The stress and embarrassment of being late, walking in late and knowing your teacher will be pissy, and then missing play. And there’s nothing they can do about it because it’s the parent. Great teaching there.

randomsabreuse · 07/10/2018 12:05

Ability to earn is somewhat limited by location. Realistically max commute time is 45 minutes to 1 hour, cost in parking say £6 (needs to be close to maximise work time), cost in fuel say 20 miles/day at 20p/mile so £4/day. That's at least 1 hour's pay gone, out of the 4 you can get in school hours with that commute.

This job is probably not term time only because it is less than school hours - so now you need to find £££ for holiday clubs for 3 children and the maths just doesn't add up - you would be unlikely to break even over the year.

Obviously if OP could walk into a well paid term time only job which was local to the kids' schools she would easily make the cost of the breakfast club but in the real world competition for those jobs is quite fierce and there are not "enough" to go around!

CecilyP · 07/10/2018 12:11

Goldenbear, OP has said her DH has an early start , so it would be a lot more than a 10 minutes. And in some jobs, it's just not possible. I'm in the fortunate position of having flexi-tme but realise most people are not so lucky. Its ironic too that a school is unable to be flexible with a 4 year old but posters are suggesting that employers be flexible with their adult workers.

MaisyPops · 07/10/2018 12:15

Its ironic too that a school is unable to be flexible with a 4 year old but posters are suggesting that employers be flexible with their adult workers.
Because an adult work place isn't a school...
Theres a difference between a line of work where flexibility is possible (in order to bring about greater equality between male and female employees in the workplace) and a school of a few hundred to more than a thousand students.
Surely that much is obvious.

Goldenbear · 07/10/2018 12:22

MaisyPops, what you describe is the rhetoric of choice, it's disingenuous and ignores the operations of patriarchy that work against women and are always looking to blame women.

Goldenbear · 07/10/2018 12:26

I'm referring to your comments about taking individual responsibility for having children and knowing what to expect when you have them.

Italiangreyhound · 07/10/2018 12:30

MidniteScribbler 'The school already offers a reasonable accommodation, and that is by having before school care.' No that is not offering a solution if the OP cannot afford it.

Others who put their kids onto before or after school care are almost certainly doing so because they work and are getting paid. Tgos is not the issue here.

Italiangreyhound · 07/10/2018 12:37

Misshippi so you would penalise a child's play time because the latent got them to school late?

A prime example of how schools are not there for the kids.

And home work has been proven in primary to be of little consequence but missing valuable play and mental refreshment time might seriously impair kids ability to learn.

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