To be worn out by the mismatch between annual leave & school provision

[Yellowlegobrick]

25 days. Like most people i get 25 days annual leave.

School holidays plus inset days needs 65 days cover.

There are sod all good options to cover it locally. There'll be a football camp 20 mins away for 3 days 9 - 2.30, a forest school doing an odd week 9-3. The bigger camps are massively oversubscribed, don't run for the whole holiday and you sometimes can't get a place.

Aibu to think there needs to be a formalised, centrally managed system to acknowledge the gap and provide better coverage?

Even if DH take all our annual leave separately, we can't cover it all, especially not when we lose at least a couple of days each per year of annual leave covering days the children are ill.

Its a constant annual stress, i find myself filled with dread when the letter comes from school: end of term, finish after lunch at 1.15.... there goes another half day 🙁

It’s a lot easier to arrange swopping childcare with other parents esp of other only children it’s a win win, the kids get company and keep each other occupied and it’s saves holiday much more difficult with siblings. Holiday clubs - only need to pay for one. Having a single child is really a sensible option if you don’t have family support and 2working parents.

Unpaid parental leave is becoming parroted a bit with no thought to the fact that many people just can’t afford to take a month or more off unpaid, and even if they could, workplaces aren’t going to be thrilled about it.

@Popcorn640
"But society has changed - it's a real luxury to afford to have a stay at home parent in the current climate, whereas it was the norm in previous generations."

So true.

Society hasn't caught up with the fact that it is now standard to have both parents working in most families with school age children. There needs to be provision for this in the way society works.

I think if you have exhausted all other options then unpaid parental leave is the only way to go.

You’re preaching to the converted on the benefits of only having one (DP and I are aligned on one-and-done, if we have any!), I was just wondering why school holidays were any easier to cover. But you and another poster have answered that. :)

There's a holiday club attached to DCs' nursery that takes kids up to age 11 (i.e. end of primary school) so that's where ours will be going when they're school age.

Trouble is it's nursery rates - circa £60 for a full day.

I remember this being a nightmare. School camps were 10-3 which were no help at all. A couple of years DS’s friends did the same camp for a couple of weeks so the parents could lift share. The local leisure centre had a full day’s activities but it used to cost about the same as I earned for a day and they usually hated it. Bloody nightmare.

Because school is not childcare, it is education?

So sorry that school staff need holidays as well as students!!! Maybe they should every day of the year including weekends so you and your husband don't have to worry about alternate childcare

If it wasn’t for family help I don’t know how we’d do it. Grandparents cover insets, strikes days, all the school events like assemblies and sports days, and half day finishes.

Currently I’ll be out of holiday by the end of the year, and then still have 3 months to go until the holiday year re-sets. Feb half term will be unpaid. This is with the standard 25 days, plus BH, plus buying 5 days extra.

DH is a contractor so doesn’t get paid if he doesn’t work, so he does a day or two a week for each week off. The rest is me, holiday clubs, and swapping with other mums.

The only options after you have taken all your annual leave are unpaid parental leave or paying for childcare, both of which will cost money.

Unless you have willing grandparents on hand, what do you suppose another option could be?
If you have children you have to pay for them, but of course there are government schemes such as tax free childcare to help. Or do you think parents should be given more paid leave than non-parents? That would not only cause resentment, but it would also make employers more reluctant to hire parents (and let's face it, it will be women who will suffer).

It’s so hard especially in this ‘sandwich generation’ where our own parents are working later in life and aren’t able to help as much as MAYBE (not all) grandparents did in the past. I know I spent a lot of time with grandparents in the holidays but it’s not an option for my children.

I also don’t have any friends I can swap childcare with.

In practice, schools are also childcare. That's why the Govt are only planning to offer 30h/week free childcare until the child starts school. And it's why, during lockdown in 2020, schools were opening to offer limited places to the children of key workers.

Stupid reply.

For years dh and I only had one week off together and tag teamed the rest. It does get easier as they get older.

Not sure where you’re getting this comment from thw OP don’t think she’s complaining about teachers having holidays but more about the lack of support to cover the holidays

and anyway yes they deserve the holidays so does op, not only teachers work on high pressure roles

No one is suggesting that, but imagine no wraparound care existed at all. Teachers wouldn’t be able to teach unless someone was available to pick their child up.

I think you are legally entitled to take a certain number of unpaid weeks leave for childcare?

Part of the problem is the paperwork and rules and regulations of running activities and camps. When I was growing up , we went on YMCA , scout camps and pony club camps and students ran village hall activities . Now everything has to be Ofsted approved and health and safety documented, staff need vetting and people don't want to volunteer or have time or inclination to work so hard for low pay.
At 13 , I was looking after quite young kids as a summer job( something that is probably illegal now )and I certainly couldn't image my own 13yr old doing.

And @kitkat9999 as to what I think other options could be - I just think some form of childcare that is reasonably affordable and does offer some sort of benefit to children is not that hard to achieve. I work TTO, it isn’t a personal issue to me and my children are still very little (one isn’t actually born yet!) but it doesn’t mean I’m not sympathetic to the challenges it presents to working parents.

We have a lovely local holiday club which would work out at £3k for two children for six weeks.

Lunch not included.

Bloody hell :o.

This is why i feel like I’m stuck in teaching until my eldest can stay on her own. Holidays are sorted, but insets are a pain.

My dd goes to a childminder on these days, but i appreciate that doing this all summer would negate the reason to go to work

I was about to say the same. I'm in the Midwest and we wince when we pay the camp fees.

OP, would a part-time nanny be more cost effective? We use our friends daughter who's about to go to college.

Are there any SCL/Supercamp style clubs where you are?