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 🙁

Definitely recommend the one and done route 😀.

I sympathise. This is why I trained and became a full time childminder. Honestly the best job I ever had. Did it for 7 years until dd didn't need me at home anymore(mid secondary).
Picked my hours, clients, activities, meal planning, fees. Paid all my bills and my house has never been so clean.

So £50 a day..... the same price as nursery.

Childcare is the responsibility of the parents not the schools. If councils set up some provision for holiday care will parents be able to pay for it You can’t expect everyone else to fund your life choices. I had to make the choice to only work part time so that my children were cared for and now my state pension will be less.

If I were unemployed in your area op, I'd be chomping at the bit to open a holiday club. The demand must be huge. Even if I had a job like yours, I'd be looking in to swapping it to set up a school holiday club.

So easy to do, sort out the insurance, book a hall and field (easy cos schools are empty), employ some uni students looking for holiday work, bound to be a footballer/dancer/painter in amongst them. Simples.

It's actually quite different in my area - so many awesome holiday clubs that I actually felt guilty towards my children for being a sahm.

There were quite a few childcare options when my children were at primary school but perhaps that's because I live in a large city. There might be fewer options now because many people can work at home some of the time though. Are there any cities within an hour of you or your place of work as you may find more options although you still might have to work a shorter day in order to pickup/drop off?

Round our way there seem to be free clubs designed for children who will be missing out on free school meals over the holidays so these clubs are a way of feeding them, and virtually nothing else. The local sports centre used to offer a good club for ages 5-14 every day of the holidays 8-5.30. Then Covid happened and now it's just on about 6 days in the whole holidays and only for age 8-11 from 9 til 3pm.

I do think there must have been some complaints last year about all the clubs just being open to children entitled to free school meals as this year some of them are advertising themselves as open to 'everyone affected by the cost of living increase, which we understand to be everyone.' But even so they're only open 10-2 and not many of them are open every day of the week for the full six weeks.

I do agree the whole system needs an overhaul.

Nurseries need proper funding for the hours they provide.

School wrap around care needs to cover School holidays.
Lots of schemes are great for SAHPs or Grannies who look after kids but want a break for a morning or few hours.

Trying to find care for kids to 5/6pm is a nightmare. And yes it is a long day for 12 yos to be home alone from 8/8.30 to 5/5.30 in the evenings.

Maybe colleges should run summer schools, partly staffed by students esp students doing childcare qualifications.

There probably isn't much demand in OP's area though or people would have already set up holiday clubs.

That's £50 per child per day, which was standard a good few years ago when mine were little, and less than many nurseries. Obviously It's better to budget year round rather than try to find it all in one go over the summer, plus I think there's Childcare vouchers (do these still exist?), and childcare help from UC that will lessen the amount. But, yes, childcare is expensive.

My ds has left now and I work in education so luckily was covered.

However I've noticed that in school holidays playschemes were once 8-6 and as you say now run 9-3.

We use to love the all day camps during the holidays and think it's a shame kids are missing out or have to go to a sport specific camp.

Outs use to be craft and bouncy castle, local park, sports and swimming etc.

Some local leisure centres still run all day general camps.

Not at all.

I'm a single parent to a disabled DC and that's why I was lucky to work term time only.

Or I'd have been screwed!!!

We're fortunate to have a holiday club at school that runs 7.30am - 6pm but it's only running four days a week over the summer as they can't staff it for five days a week. But they also provide all the meals which makes life a lot easier.

Before we relocated there were some crazy options available locally - football or sports or drama clubs that ran 10am - 2pm. What possible use is that if you're working?! Especially if you commute too so really need at least 8am - 6pm.

The people talking about planning around this are being completely unrealistic. There's no amount of prep or research prospective parents that can do that will allow them to assure themselves of sufficient childcare for the next dozen years, absent the very rich few who know they'll always be able to afford a nanny. Whatever the childcare provision in your area might look like when you're pregnant or TTC, you've no way of knowing whether any of it will still be there in years to come.

That being said, I don't know how this is fixable. There aren't actually that many people who want to work long hours with early starts and children in summer holidays. Students have been mentioned, and I've no doubt some would, but they have lots of other options for seasonal work. No reason to assume they'd be willing and able to staff it. We have a labour shortage in the UK at the moment, and as it kicks in, it becomes a vicious circle.

I WFH.

No childcare needed. One of the great things that come from covid

Having children is a lifestyle choice though. Surely you factor this type of thing in when you're deciding to have children?

We have no family to hep so we stuck to only 2 children and I ditched my 'career' type job to work evenings.

Please tell me people do actually sit down and discuss this type of thing because i read these threads and think how could you not have known it was going to be a problem and you can't afford it!

Where are you based OP?

WFH and kids wasn't allowed when mine were little, 15 years ago. And I've major issues with 2 of my staff now as they are working from home and looking after little ones. I'm on the verge of banning homeworking.
WFH with kids only works when they are independent enough to get through to lunch without intervention.

The reason for the labour shortage is low paying jobs and lots of people caught in the benefits trap. And employers not giving fixed days or rotas far enough in advance.

A lack of childcare might also play a part, but few people really want a job 15 hours, 5 days a week from 3pm - 6pm.
Then working all the school holidays.

It's a vicious circle.

Agree. Its not fair on the children or employer until they are secondary age really.

Im based in yhe home counties.

I am not objecting to it costing & will look at unpaid parental leave (thank you for the people alerting me to this) its the sheer lack of availability.

When I was pregnant my employer ran full day subsidised holiday childcare for employees on site. It was about 5 mins walk from my office. So I'd always planned to use that once we got to school age and it was a big factor in staying with that employer.

Then Covid happened and they could no longer run it (children from many different schools) and it never restarted.

Hope you’re not my colleague. Wfh is work from home
not get paid whilst you play with your kids

It’s not allowed nowadays neither. I wfh 4 days a week. My son goes to holiday club or with one of us on holidays

Agree that the situation is ridiculous - plus lots of clubs closed over covid so having planned in advance wasn't enough.

One suggestion that I haven't seen before - use the class whatsapp to figure out what clubs might be available? As others have said some provision is really badly advertised.