To think schools should get with the times re working parents.

[working8til4]

Why can't they be open 8-6 for everyone? It would help reduce gender inequality in the work place

AIBU - DON'T BE SILLY
YANBU - actually you have a point

YABU - school is not free childcare. It's somewhere children go to be educated. And 8-6 is a disgusting amount of time for children to be expected to be there.

@Nat6999 and how much sleep did your mum get? Was she healthy? My mum did nights while Dad did days. We were put in front of the TV with videos on repeat and a box of snacks so she could get a couple of hours sleep in the morning. She can't have had more than 4hrs sleep a day. She was not particularly healthy and I would put money on it being sleep related.

External providers don't benefit much from a 1hr after school session once you've factored in travel time/admin costs. What kind of business can be successful only operating 1hr a day!

Plenty, otherwise they wouldn’t exist! It’s not a bad hourly rate when you are charging £8 plus a session for 20 plus dc and doing it 5 times a week at different schools.

@Nat6999 when did your mum fit in sleep though.

If anything, I think children need to be with their primary caregivers more.

Sadly OP school is for educating children and not to provide childcare for parents. Unfortunately, that's what lots of parents seem to think it's for.

The education system is designed for the needs of children, not parents. Being taught for such long hours is certainly not beneficial for children.

I'd maybe direct your frustration elsewhere, rather than wanting to add additional workloads onto schools.

It really doesn't. £8 × 20 = £160 gross per session. Running 5 days a week for max 36 weeks a year (rarely run 1st or last week of term) is an annual gross of ~ £28k. Tax, NI, insurance, hire costs, resources, travel, public liability, admin, advertising, free trial sessions, training, dbs/first aid courses/ safeguarding courses, mandatory qualifications and registrations.... They barely turn a profit. You certainly couldn't earn a living wage from after school clubs alone.

Yes....my husband does a majority, and there are quite a lot of dads who do school runs at my daughters school 🤷🏼‍♀️

Odd that you think adding 4 hours onto a school day is a better option than women asking their children's father to pitch in!

YABU. But I think a 4.15 rather than 3.15 finish would be a massive boost to working parents and the economy.

If you choose to have children you accept the challenges that come along with it. Even non-parents know school is 9-3 so know that if children come along they'll have that to manage for their younger years.

We have zero family help at all, it's all on DH and I, and we've made sure we juggle it so that neither child needs to do wraparound full time.

DH earns over double what I do and still does half of drop offs and pick ups - he's never seen his job as "more important" than mine. We just juggle each week depending on each other's diary and commitments at work. Your DH might save lives for a living but he's a parent and it's a bit shit of him to put it on you because of his job. Also, the flexible working guidelines have changed since April and it's much more difficult for an employer to refuse because of the needs of the business".

It's not always easy, no one is saying that, but forcing children to be out the house from 8-6 every day isn't the answer either. Not all schools have space for extensive OOS provision - teachers are still in classrooms way after school finishes prepping for the next day so classrooms aren't a viable option.

I also don't just want any Tom, Dick or Harry looking after my children just because they're the only ones who applied and they needed someone for the job.

I think school should be 8 to 1 pm like it is in some countries so children actually enjoy their childhood and I say this as a full time mum to 3

As a SAHM it doesn’t really matter what time school finishes as you’re not dashing away from a job to get there.

I'm so with you!!!

@Gladtobeout

I said it wasn’t a bad hourly rate because it isn’t. The ones I use are more expensive and have at least 25 dc but I’m in London so didn’t want to assume it’s the same everywhere. There are about 7 external providers at my dcs school, why would they exist if they didn’t make money?

That’s house read a full time working mum .

Kids at school 8 to 6? I suspect you want them to have only four weeks off a year too, to fit with your annual leave?

Local 4-18 private school day is 7:20-5:30 with breakfast club and supervised play for the younger kids. Maybe something like that should be a state option (at extra cost). It doesn't have to be lessons after 3pm but games and sports would be great.

The problem as I understand it is that wrap around is often full!

I believe what OP is meaning is NOT for teaching hours to be extended but to ensure all schools put on the wrap around care with enough capacity for those that need it! The wrap around is often run separately, rightly so.

im worried that my closest primary school (10 houses away) advertises wrap around care (great we thought) but then I joined their Facebook group to scope it out before we apply for schools and the wrap around is full and not guaranteed, even if you signed up for the waiting list before being offered a place at the school!!!

Edited as read the thread and it stated wrap around care is full.

Of course they bloody do..DH has always dropped DS off, as it was on his way to work and opposite direction to me, plus I went earlier. I picked up for the first 18 mo and now DH does as the SAHP while I work 45 hr weeks....

I agree with others that the model used by a number of other countries, of school roughly 8am-1pm, with that time being focused on academic study (and a short lunch break); followed by separate and non-mandatory sessions from say 1-3 or 1-4 for arts, sports, music etc would be great. This would require a greater number of teachers / paid adults though, as people would be needed to run the arts and sports and music etc in the afternoons. In an ideal world those sessions would be fully funded for families who wanted their children to participate, and then there would be optional paid for less structured time after that for families that require it. It would hopefully reduce teachers’ working days, making it a less unattractive career prospect (they would work 8-1 plus the extra required for planning, marking, meetings etc, but hopefully 1-1.5 hours less a day; or 1-4 plus the extra hours) as well as providing more educational opportunities to children (art, music, sport etc every day). It would also help working parents. The question as ever is how this would be funded, and how the staff would be found.

8am - 6pm is longer than a standard working day for ADULTS. If you want to drop them off for 8am, what time will you leave the house? They’ll be needing to wake-up before 7am. What time will the poor little blighters have their dinner? Say 7pm? In bed at 8pm? That’s way too late for KS1 kids. When will they have time to relax if they are in school 8am-6pm Mon-Fri? They’ll be utterly exhausted.

Your children sound like an inconvenience. They are in school to learn, not to be looked after while you work. Honestly, I think some parents need to take stock and think about what life is really about.

I don't blame the school but why does holiday club start and finish an hour earlier than breakfast and after school club?

I'm a teacher and I run 2 holiday clubs. My holiday time is precious but like many I find it difficult to make ends meet so have no choice but to pick up additional work. My holiday club is full, regardless of the shorter hours. No one can force me to run the holiday club: it is run on my terms or not at all. Believe me, I have heard it all. All moaning will achieve is I stop doing my, rather niche, clubs and work for someone else instead.

The education system like every other public service in this country is a shit show. Yes most parents need more support to manage day to day but IMO convenient babysitting isn't the priority for our education system.

Watching my older nieces/nephews going through to secondary school I've come to the conclusion that my 6YO is receiving adequate primary education but that I am definitely one of the lucky ones. I've come to the conclusion that secondary education is such a shambles the only way she'll stand a chance of suceeding in higher education is hiring a private tutor or private school, neither of which I particularly can or want to afford.

Good quality early years education is absolutely vital (especially in a society where increasingly both parents have to work) yet again it is poorly subsidised and we're lucky to find good quality early years providers. Lots of afterschool and breakfast clubs are actually run by nurseries so do I think said wraparound clubs should be subsidised at the expense of early years? Absolutely not.

We have a generation of kids and parents who are becoming completely disillusioned and hostile towards the education system and a teaching workforce who is burnt out or walking out because they're effectively being shit on from above and below.

There's much bigger problems with the education system and society in general here OP and we should have fought against these problems a decade ago but here we are....

I used to have to drop mine off at a.cm at 730 then one of us picked up at just before 6 from cm or after school club. We all breathed a sick of relief once we hit high school: they now leave when they want and are home to chill by 4.

I'm a teacher. I need to be in work by 8. Earlier still in exam session. Ideally, earlier. Dh starts work at 8 too. Add in commute time and our kids just had to get on with it.