Help! No childcare...

[Nochildcare]

First time posting!

I really need some suggestions with what people do for childcare over the school holidays.

Half my childcare plans for the school holidays has fell through. There's no after school service and I work 8-6 three days a week.

I'm at a loss I don't know what to do for childcare. My dm will take my dc half the school holidays. My holidays only cover 3 weeks and I've already used them for school holidays.

I can't go term time in work or work from home. Holiday clubs are £££ a week! And pay childcare for younger dc so I can't afford it.

Anyone have suggestions?

Tia x

Sounds like you have a few choices for the shortfall :

1. you take 3 weeks unpaid leave to look after your kids
2. your DH takes 3 weeks leave to oook after your kids
3. you both split unpaid leave and take 1.5 weeks off each
4. you pay for additional childcare for those three weeks

I don’t see any issues ? Just that you have to choose one of those options and suck it up.
Then plan better for next years holiday / childcare and just write off this year as one of those things.

I used to work short weeks in school hols..so used less annual leave and less childcare to arrange. It's hard for everyone:(

Kidswap. Since you are a childcare professional could you offer to mind friends kids in return for them having yours? Lots of families are in the same boat and two 9 year olds playing together is usually not much effort for the parent and a nice novelty for the kids to see their friends over the summer.

another option is babysitting as a side income to pay for clubs in the summer.

Some workplaces also allow kids occasionally. Our school allows teachers kids in when their holidays don’t match ours.

we deferred by the way and are very happy with that decision. There are Facebook groups, one in particular run by maggie Dorman, if you’d like to join to talk to other parents who have or who are considering.

My child started school at 4.5. So did all her friends. Some were much younger

I don't understand the hoo ha you Scots make about sending kids to school aged 4

Q about deferring. Is there a cut off? I mean if most of the Feb born parents defer, then it means the Jan borns become the youngest and have all those disadvantages. So they defer, pushing it to the December borns.

So your saying my child will be a bully?

Ds is big for his age but he's very sweet and caring. Yes he has his moments with his older brother but I've not once had his nursery staff say he's hit another child, I wouldn't stand for that behaviour

No @Nochildcare I didn’t mention anything about bullying or your specific child.
I just gave my experience with kids that have been held back.

I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Children develop at different rates. At age 4 a certain percentage won’t be ready for the school environment and will suffer some disadvantage as a result, at 5 it’ll be a smaller percentage not ready, at 6 lower still and so on. I remember reading some research which suggested that a later start date was better as very few children were disadvantaged then simply because they had almost all reached the maturity level required for the school environment. So, even allowing for a range of ages because of different birthdays, when the average starting age is older, it ends up being fairer I think.

As a teacher in scotland, i have never found this at all.
I also see massive benefits to deferring and I have never heard a parent say they regret deferring but I have had some say they regret not deferring.

No hoo-ha being made by the Scots Mums-netters. Explanations that school ages differ in Scotland is all. In fact it is people from England who started making a fuss about what happens in Scotland and are continuing to do so, while also having a go at the OP.

Incidentally, many children in European Countries don't start until age 6 - or even 7 in a few.........

As already explained on the thread us Scots don’t have a Reception year, they start school in Primary 1 which is your Year 1. So your Year 1s will be 5/5.5 years old and our P1s could have just turned 4.5. That’s why many people defer.

Thanks. That makes sense.
The later they start the more ready they are to learn.
You can start teaching a child to read at 4 or 5 and they'd probably be at the same level aged 6, but more of the 4 yos would have struggled than the 5 yos.

Both my sons are March born (England), I'm Sept and their Dad is Oct so deferring has never been part of our world. I do remember looking at my just turned 4 yo and thinking that he really wasn't ready for school. 6 months make a lot of difference at that age.

Where's the 'hoo ha'? It's just a different education system and kids start at different times. We also have different school term dates, different qualifications being assessed, etc.

@JontyGentoo so loud and so wrong

Reception = P1
Y1 = P2
Y2 = P3
Y3 = P4
Y4 = P5
Y5 = P6
Y6 = P7

...

Y7 = S1
And so on and so forth...

OP, not sure if anyone's mentioned, you generally receive 85% of childcare costs back if on UC, not 15%. Would that make things better for you?

You should be able to claim 30 free hours per week for your 3 year old for holiday clubs x

I would be trying to do a child swap with the older 1. You’ll took after his mate a couple days a week if they’ll look after your son for a couple?

I’m in Ireland and we don’t have a deferral system at all. It’s up to the parents when they start as long as they’re in school by 6. Most do start around 5 though. A child with a Feb birthday would probably start at 5.5. Often they’re 19 leaving school here then, (so it seems to differ from Scotland that way) and I don’t think the starting age will increase further here for that reason.

No, the very beginning of August.

There's no hoo ha, you can send your child from four. I don't understand how some of you lot are so rude but there you are, Scotland's a different country thankfully. 🙏

And us Scots don’t understand why you English can’t wait to punt them off to school
the second they turn 4..

See what I did there?

Deferral is an interesting one.

So traditionally our school year ran
1st march-Last day of feb.

Anyone could make an application to defer.

NOW. Any child who has not yet turned five on the day the august entry starts, so remember this will move each year by a few days, can have a third year of nursery automatically no questions asked.

So if we look at a class, we could have

A, turns 6 25 august 2024 deferred
B turns 5 28 Feb 2025.

And that's what we have.

So the change, was based on the more relaxed let the, play ethos. The hours of school and nursery are the same.

For me, I was all for it. I love the flexibility of nursery here. The ability to have family time without being frowned upon for taking them out.

For the first two.

The third, October birthday. Youngest in her year. But was ready and needed to move with friends. Nobody deferred.

The fourth. I'm in the fence. January birthday. Ready to move in one sense, ability wise, and has three feb birthday following year girls in her class. So she will be a year and a month older.

BUT, all her current class are after august birthdays and are deferring.

So do I send her alone to follow her sister, composite class, 15 month apart.

Or leave her to a large entry with 18 month age difference.

I would say nursery year before school is equivalent to reception.
But they are not comparable as its an entirely different curriculum 🙄

Take unpaid leave.