Why is there such a huge discrepancy between the school day/school hols and the majority of workplaces

[Lifeisbeaut]

Just returning to work after a career break and trying to work out the logistics of school pick ups, how to manage school holidays whilst minimising the children being passed from pillar to post without routine. It’s not manageable or affordable.
I wish more employers offered term time only or proper part time options. I feel like what’s the point in going back to work when I will barely see my children and I’m barely bringing much more money in. Whoever said we could have it all was lying (unless I am missing something?)

grasspigeons, must really depend on your area. Where I am there is high demand for childcare and no problem staffing wraparound from school staff.

Smoggle

Why do you believe that it will be so easy to staff?

Do you really believe that there are queues of people that would work these hours?

Do you really think that people will take minimum wage for all of the issues that goes with 3 hours of work?

IME it isn't a problem Boney, but staff don't just work 3 hours.

Smoggle

But that is what you are asking for, extra staff for a three hour session. Employers won't pay them for the time when the children are in lessons.

Would you really pay someone hours worked for a job that doesn't exist during the day?

I am a medical consultant
I would utterly adore part time working or term time only working
Unfortunately they just aren’t an option in my specialty
My kids have a patchwork of all of it not that great childcare in holidays and I feel intensely guilty about it. I’m sure they will end up hating me for it. My hours are rubbish and I’m on call a lot which both negatively affect the family.

You might think I should’ve known what was coming when I chose it, but that is simply not the case; 10-20 years ago when I was doing post grad training, the senior reg ran the show and the consultant was protected. Not now. I get called 1-2hourly all day and all night for a week 1 in 3. It’s like the knackeredness of having a newborn then someone asking you complicated questions while you don’t know which way is up by the end of the week.

I run a large social media group for medical mums, many of whom can’t make it work during or after sub specialty training so quit. What a waste of time, money and expertise! And what an enormous waste of taxpayers money training people who quit because they can’t navigate an inflexible working environment once they get there.

It’s a travesty imho.

Why 3 hours? Why not 11.30-6? Why have someone start at 3 if the school day runs til 4.30? It wouldn't make sense.

It's normal for breakfast club and afterschool staff to do other roles in the school.

Smoggle

Where are they going to be working 11:30 - 15:00?

It's normal for breakfast club and afterschool staff to do other roles in the school.

Already covered this.

I can imagine the resulting threads already: "AIBU to expect [service] to be offered for longer hours?"

I don't think a slightly slower person on the checkout is the end of the world, they are only on minimum wage. There are always new staff in these jobs. I also don't think a bit of training is the end of the world.

Even if it's most of the people on the checkout? Policy at my work is that for age restricted products, a new member of staff must have every sale authorised for a few weeks. Queues would be out the door long, imagine a load of new staff for the Christmas rush who had to be supervised to sell alcohol! You could be replacing half the staff members for 6 weeks, then expecting the old staff to come back at exactly the same level they were before (after being trained on any updated policies or procedures obviously)

Where are they going to be working 11:30 - 15:00?
Are you still talking about my earlier suggestion for the school day?
If you are then lunch time/break supervision 11.30-1.30
Extra curricular clubs 1.30-4.30
Homework/tea club 4.30-6.

Currently with a standard school day - for example in my children's school, the breakfast club is staffed by two cleaners and one TA/midday supervisor.
The after school club is staffed by two TAs and the PE instructor.

Smoggle

We are taking at cross purposes then I am talking about now and the hours that we currently have.

So with your new hours what hours are you expecting the "specialists" to do, again are they teachers? are they people from outside the school?
Are they the same people that would be doing the childcare and the lunch duty?

I live in France where we have longer and more holidays than anywhere else in Europe: 8 weeks in the summer, 2 weeks in October, 2 weeks Christmas, 2 weeks February, 2 weeks April = 16 weeks in total!

Yet there are a lot of things that the French do that makes this bearable - some are cultural and some are structural. I've been told that French feminism centres on making it possible for women to work in the same way as men do - that's certainly backed up by the widespread provision of state-funded childcare. People are expected to have children, it's the norm, and the state actively supports them financially to do so (the more the better in many ways - there are various benefits available only to families with 3 or more children) - and there's very little of this "it's your choice to breed - suck it up!" attitude that seems to be common in the UK. So we have:

• publicly-funded creches available from the age of 6 months and up. Standard hours are 0730 to 1830-ish. Costs are means-tested, so lower income families pay very little - and even the higher end is very cheap compared to British nursery rates. There is also an army of 'nounous' or childminders, again the cost of hiring a registered one is heavily subsidised and controlled by the state.

• school starts age 3yrs. Standard hours are 0830 to 1630 with early starts and after-school care available to extend the day from 0730 to 1830. Again, the after-school care is means-tested for cost.

• hundreds of holiday "stages" / leisure clubs / activity clubs are available, both privately and organised by the local authorities (for the latter cost is again means tested) that run similar hours to the schools so no change to the routine for working parents. It's not always easy to get a spot, but at least they exist and are affordable.

• in addition to the above, "colonies des vacances" or residential holiday care is widespread, and although not cheap it's really not unusual for kids as young as 4 to go away for a week of "colo" during the summer.

• children are left on their own at home much earlier and for longer. It wouldn't be unusual for a 10/11 year old to be left home all day during the holidays - maybe not for the whole time, but certainly for a week.

• grandparents: pretty much every French child I know spends at least 2 weeks with one set of grandparents, then two weeks with the other, during summer. This starts very very young - very few French women breastfeed beyond the first couple of months, so even young babies are shipped off to the grandparents in the summer when the creche has closed.

• Everything shuts for the whole of August. So parents can easily take 2-3 weeks in August if they need to.

None of these ideas would work in the UK as they require paying a helluva lot more taxes and an acceptance that it is right for society as a whole to support families and help women to work.

So imagine you have the same working hours and holidays as your school children ... what will you do with that extra time? Go out, maybe visit a theme park - staffed by adults. Go for a meal - waited on by other adults. Go on holiday - hotel managed by, cleaned by adults. If all parents had extended holiday to care for their children, who is actually going to work so that you can do things during that holiday?

*you is meant as a general term, not directed at the OP or any other MN individual.

Boney - so with what we currently have non-teaching staff can do several roles throughout the day like TA, lunch/break supervision and before/after school care eg 6-9/7.30-3/9-6/12-6 working hours.

Specialist instructors leading pe/drama/art sessions provided by outside companies are often used by schools to cover teachers' PPA. They aren't teachers and are on equivalent TA/childcare wages. I suggest these could be brought in house to cover longer PPA time and those people could easily also do other TA or childcare roles within school if they wanted longer hours.

Hels why would you kids hate you and not their father for working for a living in a career you love? The real travesty is how childcare, and therefore the desire for flexible work hours, are seen as the domain of women and it's the women leaving medicine due to the hours. It's so patriarchal. Men = breadwinner. Woman = Mum. But they are both parents and equally responsible.

In the UK school starts earlier (agewise) and kids are older when they are allowed to walk to/from school and stay home alone than in a lot of places. Making changes in this would potentially make it easier.

EggysMom So imagine you have the same working hours and holidays as your school children ... what will you do with that extra time? Go out, maybe visit a theme park - staffed by adults. Go for a meal - waited on by other adults. Go on holiday - hotel managed by, cleaned by adults. If all parents had extended holiday to care for their children, who is actually going to work so that you can do things during that holiday?

As with so many threads like this, when OP says "better for everyone" they really mean "better for me"

OP the short answer is because the workplace is set up for men, and childrearing is seen as a female thing.

None of these ideas would work in the UK as they require paying a helluva lot more taxes and an acceptance that it is right for society as a whole to support families and help women to work.

There's also the added factors that very few British women would want shorter mat leaves to go back to work (the year long one is seen as the norm with the mother taking all of it, not sharing it with the father, with the usual 'we can't afford for him to take the leave'), frown upon using childcare for young babies and wouldn't want to give up breastfeeding to return to work.

Also cannot imagine some British women being happy about the kids going with the ILs for a fortnight, either, if the threads about ILs are anything to go by.

It's very patriarchal here culturally but this is embraced by women here, too.

@Slashlover, that sounds crazy. They ought to be paid more than minimum wage.

Smoggle

So you would decimate over half the teaching staff and hope to bring them back in as "Specialist instructors", with no PPA time to set up, minimal benefits and basically make them kids club staff?

Who? Cashiers in supermarkets.

So imagine you have the same working hours and holidays as your school children ... what will you do with that extra time? Go out, maybe visit a theme park - staffed by adults. Go for a meal - waited on by other adults. Go on holiday - hotel managed by, cleaned by adults. If all parents had extended holiday to care for their children, who is actually going to work so that you can do things during that holiday?

Untrained university students apparently.

OP the short answer is because the workplace is set up for men, and childrearing is seen as a female thing.

Absolute rubbish there are sahp's of both sexes.
When you have dc this is what you consider, if both of you are unable to work then both should look at pt or have a sahp.
If you don't want this, don't have the kids.
The workplace has evolved so much in the last 30 years, and thanks to previous generations conditions are greatly improved for women.
You can't expect businesses to make any more flexibility for working parents.

Boney - same number of teachers with fewer contact hours.

that doesn't equate to what you have said.

PE, art, drama, etc. are to be taught by specialists outside of the school that are not teachers and paid the same wage as TAs.
Morning sessions are for core subjects.

however you spin that it doesn't work.