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

Not since so many became Academies and were transferred into their control

@OriginalUsername2

Because childcare is first come first served. Not pre-booked at conception.
🤣

@Seashor is making inflammatory comments. No one is that publicly ignorant.

Yes. But work doesn't mean you get to opt out of looking after your own children. Mother's don't. So if you put up with father's opting out, more fool you. But don't complain schools aren't doing enough when your own partner isn't doing enough.

Isn't this already being rolled out as a government policy? It was announced at the same time as the new 15 hr funding for 9month old. I'm assuming paid for but wider availability. I think the first 'new' wraparound ones start sept 2024 in some areas, but it will be gradual.

For what it's worth, I'm a teacher and my dd goes to breakfast club and afterschool club. Wraparound care was right at the top of my list when choosing a school. My dh is a tradie who leaves the house at 6.30 so can't do normal drop or pick up time either. There's quite a few dads who do drop off and/or pick up in my dd's class, but it is definitely predominantly women.

Where in Germany is this?

When I worked in Germany, they had the same issues with childcare that we do in the U.K. Particularly for those parents who were working 9-5 as the local school system ran 7:15-12:15 on 3 days and 8:00-1:30 on the other 2.

Anything outside of this was definitely paid for and tended to be centred around music and sport. Encouraging the elderly to do voluntary childminding was even being encouraged at the time!

@Seashor

This is harsh.

There can be contraceptive failures.

Relationships may break down due to a multitude of reasons such as bereavement, abuse, financial issues such as redundancy, infidelity.

Parents and/or children can develop disabilities.

Sometimes parents die.

Shit happens.

Not everyone gets the idealistic scenario of marrying a big money man who remains faithful and allows you to fart about on a 2 1/2 - 4 day week for pin money, making you available for school collections and homework time.

I think what would be fair for those earning less is that they get free on site wrap around care and more support, provided they are using the time for work. And summer schemes need to have work friendly hours.

Is that really the idealistic scenario @Unjustifiable marrying a big money man? It's the 21st Century after all.

@Luddite26

Of course it’s not.

But school and childcare are still set up for this scenario. For example, wrap around finishing at 4pm and holiday schemes being beyond the financial reach of many and often not eligible to be submitted for UC payments.

The fact is that women predominantly are being constrained to work part time or during term time due to inadequate provision. And it shouldn’t be this way because it is the 21st century! And we are in an economic environment where, unless one of you earns well in excess of the average income, both parents need to work.

Phew.

But who are these different people? They'd either have full time jobs of their own or have children that need childcare too.

YABU

The purpose of school is to educate children. It is not for childcare, so no the working hours of parents should not dictate the length of the school day.

If you have children, you need to factor in how you manage childcare, including how you pay for it.

The state would have to pick up the tab for extra staff (you can’t just decide teachers are now having mandatory 10 hour days, so you would need extra staff) and that would not be cheap. Money far better spent on actually educating children.

How do you organise this before you have children? Your relationship could
break down, your job change, move house, child care settings might close, parents might become unwell and no longer help. There’s too many variables between getting pregnant and child being in school full time - nearly 6 years!

France has a 9-5 school day. A French friend told me it's mandatory and her mother wanted to take her for half days but it wasn't allowed, one of the reasons she moved away with her kids. On the flip side I believe there isn't a huge amount of 'mum guilt' because that's the way it is. Also it's normal to put your child in nursery earlier. I think we need to look at other models of care to facilitate working parents and see what's been done elsewhere (not suggesting the French way) The reality is there's an inherent unfairness and burden of responsibility re childcare on women and very little support or joint up thinking.

This is what I keep saying. WHO is going to want to work say 7-9am and then 3-6pm.
And are all these parents who want to work 9-3 going to take on these jobs/ the shit shifts once their kids are old enough?
Say you work as a receptionist and you have young kids so you work 9-3. But the office is open until 8pm. Are you going to happily change shifts to work 3-8pm once your kids are adults to allow other parents to do the early shift?

Excuse me? Don’t know why you’re having a go at me about it. Where has anyone said that teachers are the only ones who work hard? I certainly never had and I don’t know any teacher who has either.

I work hard but there’s far more hard working and stressful jobs out there where it is actually a matter of life and death.

My post asks the question of when would we have time to do all the things we do unpaid? I am paid from 8:30-3:30. But I do so many more hours than that.
And no I don’t want a fucking pay increase either before anyone starts on that, I just want education to be funded properly. And yes the holidays are marvellous. And I am lucky to have so much of them.

Stop school at 1pm like on the continent? Never going to happen in this country. Our education system is fucked. And can you even imagine the outcry. Lazy teachers etc.

Why do people continue to make the argument that because some DC go to wraparound care, that means it's possible for all schools to provide on premises wraparound for all parents who need it? The existence of childminders who cover primary aged DC tells us the square root of bugger all about the viability of programmes in a completely different setting.

As has been pointed out a looooooot of times now, we don't even have enough teachers and TAs for the current school day. There are not other ones ready to swoop in to work split shifts for 4 hours a day.

And school roles haven't been like hen's teeth for years now. It's not the 2010s any more. There's no evidence that this workforce you're talking about actually exists.

I voted yanbu as I rashly assumed you meant with offering or being linked to wraparound care or tea and homework clubs
living rurally we had one childminder who’d wander up to the school last minute and drag a few kids back home with her. They always looked miserable so I had to stay part time until secondary school
no after school club. Eventually a breakfast club but I didn’t need that.
was impossible to get a childminder to travel to the school from outside the village. This was pre facebook days tho so not easy to find people

Mine always are. Drives me insane. I recently came to do a DT project - not one piece of white card left. I hadn't used any this year. This is just ONE thing that has gone. And the rest. I do not have money in the budget to replace them next year so next year will be no craft. We can't afford it.

What gets me is that ppl assume that teachers walk out of the door at 3:30pm. I have breakfast club and after school club in my classroom. It means my classroom never gets cleaned (cleaner can't clean when kids are there). It means I can't set up things ready for the day because everything is being used right up to the bell and right after. It means things I bought are broken and get used/lost. It means I have no time away from the kids when prepping for the day - I am always expected to be 'on call' if something happens to those kids (trips/falls etc). They want my attention, they want to come and talk to me. I am trying to work but I can't because it is like having a class full of kids.

How does that work? Do we rent out office space and let ppl into offices when the workers are working to disrupt them and take their supplies?

Schools are still being used and staff are still working in classrooms after school.

While I understand this (and other teachers’ posts about clubs infringing on their ability to set up classrooms, prep for the next day, etc.) must be frustrating as hell, they are surely symptoms of the current lack of investment in education? They aren’t problems that couldn’t be solved if there was the political will to have both good schooling and wrap around care for all children in schools.

So how would them using my room when I am trying to set up be solved? Build a new room on what land?

Them not having anywhere to store their items near where the club is held is also an issue as the classrooms are for the kids in school. There is no space so they have no storage space for their own things....again leading to them taking mine. That space can't just be created.

Funding - properly funding education? Since when has that ever happened!!! ha!

If I'm remembering rightly - there was a political initiative for schools to be providing wrap-around care between 8 am to 6 pm - maybe around 15 years or so ago? I'm guessing this went the same way as the evening and Sunday openings at the library and the early years centres .

RawBloomers
Why can't the kids be dropped off at the parents offices after school and the parents then carry on working with the kids in the offices?

I suppose they could be but it wouldn’t serve a useful purpose. It would be shit for the parents, their employers, the children, the people transporting the children and probably most of the people using the transport network right after the end of school.

And what has it got to do with anything I posted about?

Ah but it's OK for it to be shit for the employees in school. What does it have to do with what you said? You said it was ok for teachers to have to put up with this shit deal but not parents, right?

It is what teachers experience in their 'office' when trying to work after school if there is an after school club in their room. But that doesn't matter does it?