To think that people who say that school is not childcare are being disingenuous

[Notcontent]

There have been so many threads started by people struggling to work while schools are closed, and invariably there are posters who bang on about how “school is not childcare” etc and people just need to suck it up... there was another one today - about holiday clubs - with someone saying that “holiday clubs are a privilege”!

That makes me so mad. The reality is that children (and actually teenagers too) need care and structure and can’t just be left for days and weeks on end to fend for themselves. In historical times, before we had schools, before most people worked outside the home, young children were looked after at home by extended families and later often worked alongside their parents. Current social structure - where most mend and women work outside the home (and need to do so to support themselves) - relies on schools playing a part.

OP schools are not childcare and teachers are not child carers. Their purpose is to educate they are for the benefit of the child they were not set up or designed to be unpaid childcare so parents can go to work. The schools job is not to nurture or care for the child whole the parents work. Their role is to teach. Of course that doesn't mean schools and teachers can't also be caring but it is wrong for parents to treat school's as child care. That is the parents responsibility not the schools.
I am not a teacher incidentally.

@Wolfiefan yes but snow days and sick days are a bit different from school shutting for months like it is at the moment. If DS gets ill, I can take a couple of days off work unpaid. I can't take 6 months off work unpaid!

The reality is that children (and actually teenagers too) need care and structure and can’t just be left for days and weeks on end to fend for themselves.

that would be why a 5 or 10 year old are not legally allowed to move into their own place or left in the wild

Supervision, pastoral care, basic skills, life skills, education, it's all YOUR job as a parent. Teachers might be trained professional teaching about specific subjects, but it's outrageous to completely remove yourself from your own role! Parents are in charge of education!

Us adults might go on various technical course for work, that's education, but you don't expect your boss, the government or god knows who to teach you how to make your bed, pay your bills or cook diner...

Yes, you remove the hours normally spent at school from your need for childcare, but the schools are not a babysitting service. They are not there to care for sick children that parents refuse to keep home.

We should concentrate a lot more on what education is provided to the children. Kids are not sent to school to free time for their parents, they are there to learn, to socialise and still have a childhood.

If you want someone else to be in charge of structure, routines, pastoral care, general education, life skills, then get a nanny. Don't waste the teachers'time who are there to teach my kids and yours, not do your job.

Of course you should have a back up plan. Snow days, sick days, holidays, kids excluded etc etc.

Naturally people have a back up plan for these things.

However, an unprecedented global pandemic when the vast, vast majority of childcare provision has been shut, mixing households is forbidden and one of the most common back ups (grandparents) is totally out of bounds?

Erm, don’t be ridiculous.

I mean if what you get in benefits and what you are expected to do work wise changes when children on school age then that means the government do believe school is partly childcare.

nope, it means the government recognises that your child will be busy a few hours a day and you should use these hours to get off your backside.

they were not set up or designed to be unpaid childcare so parents can go to work.

That isn’t really true. Our society has been designed in such a way that overlaps working hours and schooling hours to as great a degree as possible, in part to facilitate working parents. Wrap around care is usually available to support this.

It’s an efficient system, I’ve no idea why people are trying to deny that this how the world works.

No one is denying that you can use the school hours as "childcare" , as in not needing another structure for that

but the whole point of school is NOT to get the children out of your way.

Supervision, pastoral care, basic skills, life skills, education, it's all YOUR job as a parent. Teachers might be trained professional teaching about specific subjects, but it's outrageous to completely remove yourself from your own role! Parents are in charge of education!

Yes, but this is also a parent's job when their child is at a childminder or
nursery.

Perhaps it's fair to say that teachers aren't adequately trained, rewarded or resourced for the roles that that they are now expected to perform, but society, and specifically the government does now expect schools to perform a social work and child care role as well as education.

But if children aren't being kept busy at school then this means you may not be able to go out to work. The lack of sympathy for parents in this situation is depressing as fuck.

but the whole point of school is NOT to get the children out of your way.

And no one is saying that.

The lack of sympathy for parents in this situation is depressing as fuck.

I know right, it’s appalling.

I’ve been quite “lucky” during lockdown so far. I work shifts and had annual leave booked already that helped. H had to close his factory and is back part time and my dad is still off so can help with childcare.

Fuck knows how other parents manage. However, we both work out of home and will seriously need to start doing some juggling.

So people should stop moaning at parents who have been concerned about the lack of school hours. It helps people pay the bills.

But if children aren't being kept busy at school then this means you may not be able to go out to work. The lack of sympathy for parents in this situation is depressing as fuck.

What do you do in the summer break? You find some childcare. What do you do BEFORE and AFTER the school day? You find childcare.

How is confusing school and childcare helping anyone exactly?

@Homemadeandfromscratch

The reality is that children (and actually teenagers too) need care and structure and can’t just be left for days and weeks on end to fend for themselves.

that would be why a 5 or 10 year old are not legally allowed to move into their own place or left in the wild

Supervision, pastoral care, basic skills, life skills, education, it's all YOUR job as a parent. Teachers might be trained professional teaching about specific subjects, but it's outrageous to completely remove yourself from your own role! Parents are in charge of education!

Us adults might go on various technical course for work, that's education, but you don't expect your boss, the government or god knows who to teach you how to make your bed, pay your bills or cook diner...

Yes, you remove the hours normally spent at school from your need for childcare, but the schools are not a babysitting service. They are not there to care for sick children that parents refuse to keep home.

We should concentrate a lot more on what education is provided to the children. Kids are not sent to school to free time for their parents, they are there to learn, to socialise and still have a childhood.

If you want someone else to be in charge of structure, routines, pastoral care, general education, life skills, then get a nanny. Don't waste the teachers'time who are there to teach my kids and yours, not do your job.

I don’t anyone has said that school is childcare for the purposes of life skills, pastoral care or to teach children to make thier bed??!! What a silly thing to say. Childcare just means that someone other than the parent is in charge of that child. It’s not a replacement for the parent or the parent responsibilities. It just means that for that precise moment of time someone other than the parent is looking after that child and is responsible for its welfare.

Governments Around the world have created a structure where they agree to provide education and childcare (as in adults in charge of children so parents do not have to be present) in return for those adults being able to go out to work. You are how’ve to think that governments don’t realise that school provisos is needed to keep a large part of the work force in work. L

LaurieMarlow
you literally just wrote that in part to facilitate working parents

The school day should be designed in the best interest of the child, not based on the time the parents start work...

Funnily enough I wasn't expecting a global pandemic when I had a child. Silly me, of course.

BrieAndChilli

you mean, apart from the OP who wrote exactly that and who is the one I am replying to?

The school day should be designed in the best interest of the child, not based on the time the parents start work

In the interests of efficiency, society has mostly aligned the two.

People have decided to work and how much to work based on the availability of school, after school clubs and holiday clubs. This is a massive rug pull that no one anticipated. The miserable fuckers with no sympathy for parents in this situation would no doubt be equally unsympathetic to them if they were to hand in their notice to claim benefits. You can't use what isn't there.

@Homemadeandfromscratch but childcare facilities have been closed to non key worker children. Not sure what is hard to understand about that?

It’s something I’ve only ever heard (well read) on Mumsnet. I’ve never heard anyone in real life say it, ever.

I don’t really know what people are implying when they say it. I assume they mean that they think in two parent families, one parent shouldn’t work or if they do choose to work they should hire a nanny as a back-up option. I don’t know what they think single parents should do.

What do you do in the summer break? You find some childcare. What do you do BEFORE and AFTER the school day? You find childcare

What childcare am I meant to get this summer, if I can’t use the grandparents and there are no holiday clubs? Please explain

@Monkeynuts18 I'm a single parent and someone suggested hiring a nanny to me. I earn £8.75 an hour. Mumsnet is another world.

“And to be honest a childminder (even if affordable) is not really appropriate for older children - not for the whole day”

Since when??
We take school children in the holidays, always have done. The oldest that comes to me is in her mid-teens.

The real problem is underinvestment in childcare. When I started childminding just after the millenium, there were over 100,000 childminders.

There are now around a fifth of that number left, and still dropping.