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

Maybe if schools were 8 to 1 like in Germany then after school provision would be easier to staff in one longer block. There could be better activities run in a longer time too. Single parent teachers of children under about ten would still need an extra half an hour childcare in order to get to work on time though.

And yet I didn’t start my life as a teacher. Sorry to disappoint, I’ve worked in a number of industries prior to going into teaching.
So my understanding of other jobs is quite sufficient and I still am not willing to work more than I am paid for. Which I would have thought is fair enough.

This 🎤

Schools would ideally not be childcare, but we've created a system where lots of things assume they are. The benefits system, for one. And think how many threads there are on here where people think there's no need for a SAHP once the kids are at school. Then we all saw what happened during lockdown.

OP's solution is badly thought out and implausible, but she's not wrong about the existence of a problem.

We cannot even fill our teacher vacancies. Very part time split hours for minimum wage roles that require continuous cpd and a lot of pressure are not going to be at all popular.

They said patient facing, not front line. Full time admin roles are 8.30-5pm and not always very flexible with WFH or super highly paid for expensive wraparound care etc. And not every school does wraparound. Where I am, there isn’t wraparound for over 30 miles away, a big problem for working families.

I hope this is a joke.

School is not childcare, wrap around is. A teacher has work to do before and after the children come and go from the school day.
As a teacher I work from 7.45am to between 5.30-6pm. If I had the class till 6pm I wouldn't be getting home till way later. When would I see my kids?
I choose teaching as a career 21 years ago, way before I had children myself. I love the classroom, but would leave if I could due to the extra rubbish that teaching has evolved into.
We can not keep teachers as its so bad and recruiting is shocking. The last 3 teachers employed at my school openly have said its for the holidays, then left within a year when they realised teaching doesn't work like that, as the workload is huge.
So doing what you propose, we wouldn't get anyone!

It would be quite nice if teachers liked children, given they work with them all day. Kids aren't stupid and can pick up on when the grown-ups around them would rather be anywhere else.

If they like children, the odds are high that they have children, plan to have children, or spend a lot of time with family children.

Do we really want to drive those kinds of people out of education by imposing increased hours that they can't manage with their personal lives? Teachers who like children will go that extra mile to support them and advocate for them.

How many children will have had support from a social worker because a teacher noticed that their behaviour had changed and that they had odd marks on their skin? How many will have had an assessment for neurodiversity because a teacher noticed their behaviour was different to the other children in the class? How many children will have pursued a hobby or career because a teacher believed in them?

Good teachers who want to be there and who advocate for their pupils change lives.

Think of care. That sector takes anyone, and has low pay, so plenty of people go into it for 'just a job' and that's why we have elder abuse by paid carers.

You don't want to attract people to a job who are not suited for it.

Let's keep education something that people who don't hate children might want to do.

Been a teacher for 15 years. The majority of the many teachers I have worked with are in school between 7-30 to 8 and leave between 5:30-6:00.

OP, it is in no way the schools onus to overhaul the system. It would be a government led initiative to provide wraparound care. Considering education is already woefully underfunded with some schools not even being able to afford teachers to teach the current hours, you are not only unreasonable you are being completely unrealistic.

Also teachers are parents too. We face the same problem all working parents do when it comes to childcare.

Some of the posters are cutting their nose to spit in it. If people who work 9 to 9 shouldn't have kids because they haven't sort this out, who is allow to have it? The rich who have money to pay for the childcare or not to work, the poor who are subsidise by the working people. Great! Lest do that, lest work relentless to make the rich richer and subsidise the ones who doesn't work, for whatever reason.
Welfare system is delicate. School funding should be bigger, childcare funding should be bigger, NHS funding should be bigger, care in general funding should be bigger, because we are more every year.
System itself is delicate, if we don't have money we don't spend money and if we don't spend money some of the people that is here, including me will loose their job. It is a hamster wheel and we are all the hamsters.
How are we/ they going to solve that? I don't know. And not knowing the solution doesn't mean we should turn an eye blind or not to be able to identify the problem.

I agree.
Oversubscribed clubs are an issue, or schools that don’t offer these at all. But the parents should pay the market value, making it profitable for the childcare provider.

I do wonder why teachers encourage kids to aspire to challenging and difficult jobs like, say, being a doctor, when the hours don’t fit around school times! If only people could stick to being critically ill between 9am and 3pm and only in term time.

Or maybe the feckless doctoring sorts should get their shit together and not have kids if they can’t fit work in around school hours.

Good thing doctors at least can do enough private work to pay for a nanny or private school with wraparound care. Probably both.

I read about a study on social media (Dr Amen) that children's mental health is being damaged as they are spending less time with their parents (and having weaker emotional bonds) than in previous generations because of the cost of living and everyone working. No idea if that is true. I am sure some children thrive in the education /wrap around care/lots of things going on and lots of children while others are exhausted after the school day and need some 'chill out' time. Not sure what the answer is but I think teachers have enough on their plate really.

So how do other countries do it? By offering better pay / career progression / rewards I suppose. An option would also be to restructure support staff (including TA's possibly) and have two shifts, one 8-1 and another 1-6. It's clearly possible and OP is right to question the status quo.

Why haven't you applied for a job that allows you to look after your own children? Simple right?

Here's another suggestion. Don't have children until you can afford to look after them. It's not schools or teachers jobs to parent your children.

The majority of TAs in my school take the job as it means they don't need to use any form of wraparound care. It's the only way the pitiful pay works for them.

If they were doing either an early or a late shift they'd have to pay for childcare themselves and wouldn't do the job.

The small amount of quality staff we can recruit would decrease further.

thats really unhelpful; the cost of living and choosing g to have. Holden means that for some people there need to be choices. Nobody is saying that teachers have to cover but wouldn’t it be a fantastic use of existing buildings?

There is a new push on this. My LA have a staff member newly aligned to WRAC, ensuring enough places, sustainability and quality.

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2024/05/13/before-and-after-school-childcare-what-is-wraparound-childcare/

The OP isn’t suggesting teachers provide the extra childcare. Many schools do offer it and it’s usually operated by a private outside company. Why are the teachers on here still unwilling to acknowledge this?

This has been acknowledged many, many times on the thread. But OP isn't talking about wraparound care from an external provider, she has openly said she wants schools to take responsibility for "organising a group babysitting service" for the convenience of working parents. So even if this wasn't staffed by Teachers she wants all schools (which means school staff) to take responsibility for the admin, recruitment, line management, planning and all the other extra work that would go into running a before and after school provision on top of everything else they are already doing. People are, quite rightly, questioning why she feels it is the responsibility of the school, not parents, to ensure her children are supervised outside of school hours. Yes, many schools do offer wraparound so it's odd that it doesn't seem to occurred to OP that those that don't may have good reasons for being unable to do so.

Well, you'd need to start by picking ones that have the same shortage of workers as we do. It isn't enough to simply say X country manages it. They need comparable conditions too.

Until you've done this, it's very much overstating to say 'it's clearly possible'. You're working on an assumption that people actually want to do term time only shift roles.

I'm very sympathetic to people in OPs position, but her need for a service does not automatically create workers to provide it.

No understanding here at all that many good jobs which take a lot of qualifications do not fit around school hours!

Let’s be honest, truth is that in the past these jobs were all done by men with wives at home sorting out the school stuff. Society has changed and rightly so, but nobody seems to have thought to change either working hours or school hours to adapt to the fact that MOTHERS NOW HAVE JOBS!

Or does the “getting your shit together” just mean sticking on enough false eyelashes and husband hunting relentlessly until you find the right man who can fund a SAHM lifestyle. No room here for bluestockings or, god forbid, accidental lone parents trying their best.

There is so much contempt on this thread for parents working and providing for their kids.

Full-time NHS Dr here. Sadly in London we can’t pay for nannies and a mortgage. I should have done private!

Exactly.

Any obligation at all on schools, which is what OP wants, is creating a new problem and more work in a sector that's already struggling to function. The closest OP has got to telling us how this would work practically is her suggestion that the roles should exist and be offered. She's ignored all the posts asking what happens if and when staff aren't forthcoming.

My point was that for many professionals in good jobs it’s still a huge struggle to fit working life around school hours. Having a decent discussion about that would be worthwhile. Unfortunately a lot of posters here have just dismissed any parents struggling with juggling as feckless! And educators seem to be amazingly closed-minded about any suggestions.