Another childcare rant - how do people do it?!

[SMLSML]

If you and your partner both work how do you manage childcare? My eldest started school in September and prior to this we had wraparound care in nursery. We now use after school club, however this is committee led and we've just had an email saying it's at risk of closure due to not enough volunteers. If you don't use after school club how do families make it work? Do grandparents help 5 days a week? Honestly sick of this country not helping working parents 🫠 the irony of parents needing to be on the committee to keep it open when you're already busy working and juggling a million other school bits and pieces is hilarious to me also 😅 it's something I'd love to be part of but have no idea how if find time... Any and all advice welcome!

They need new parents to step up and join the commitee

This. If the OP wants the care to continue, they need to commit to this and see how they are able to help, not rely on others stepping up. The people who use the wraparound will be all parent who work, it's not going to be stay at home mums.

After DS was born I went down to 4 days a week; split one day off to two afternoons when he started school. No local family help. After school club 3 days a week and v occasional use of breakfast club if both DH and I are out of our home town working.

In the summer holidays I take unpaid parental leave (you're all legally entitled to this for 4 weeks a year until DC is 18, but it is unpaid) to cover school summer holidays plus annual leave. Other parents we know use holiday clubs.

DH now increasingly works away on unpredictable days, and after years of WFH my work have insisted we all go back to the office 2/3 days a week (not unreasonable of them); I can’t drop off DD at nursery, DS at breakfast club/school and still make it to my desk in London at 9am or get home on time for them, so I may end up having to quit my job - bad for me and Govt tax revenue, but we knew this might be on the cards when we left London. I’ll look for a local job but as my role is very specialist I’ll likely have to go for something lower paid.

The wraparound care at my daughter’s school is run in the same way - paid staff with professional qualifications, but as it’s run as a not for profit, it is legally required to have a committee to provide oversight of the day to day operations and support the manager.

I joined the committee when we had a similar request the year after DD started school, because having wraparound care was vital to us. The committee meets once a month, in the evening, and the manager is very capable so we’re more of a sounding board for her than being involved in the day to day running. I am the treasurer so I do have more responsibility and take extra time each month to review the accounts, but an ordinary committee member wouldn’t need to do this.

Like you, we didn’t have any family nearby to help with childcare, so wraparound care was a top priority when choosing a school. Our first and second choice schools both offered wraparound care (we’re in a city so there is more provision). I’d also stayed in a lower-paid but more flexible job (local government; pre-Covid) and was able to change by working hours so I did four days over five and could finish at 3pm most of the week, meaning we only needed ASC two days a week.

If you really want to keep the wraparound care running, one of you would need to join the committee. As someone else has said, the time it takes is repaid in knowing you have secure childcare.

Yes, my husband is also a teacher.

We have both submitted flexible working requests which have been granted in part, but this only slightly helps.

Reception aged child so only just starting to navigate this but I don't think we can continue like this for another 10 years.

Just like your comment doesn't help.... I was genuinely asking for advice and being told you haven't planned accordingly or you need to move is just laughable. Not everyone has the money to move at the drop of a hat

Edit - quoted wrong post! I meant to reply to the post about wraparound care being less viable with more people wfh, which has an impact on people who can’t wfh.

I agree - numbers dropped at my DD’s wraparound care after the lockdowns (I’m on the committee), which we assumed was due to people wfh and being able to do the school pick up, then work for another couple of hours. I can see that for smaller providers, this could mean they weren’t viable any more.

Numbers have increased in the past couple of years, which I’d guess it’s due to more people having to go back in the office

Well sure, that particular comment wasn't advice. I did offer advice earlier, but you haven't actually been responding to anyone offering advice. You just want to moan, which is fine, but it won't help.
Join the committee, move house, move school or change jobs. Thems the options.

@HeyThereDelilaunpaid parental leave entitlement is one week per year up to age 18, not 4 weeks.

Don't get caught out with this!

All those saying ‘just join the committee, it’s only a few hours a month’ really need to appreciate what they are asking OP to do. If the preschool manager, or any of the staff, resigns, OP and the rest of the committee will be responsible /accountable (depending on whether it’s the manager or not) for hiring their replacement. If they can’t, the preschool and wraparound will close, and OP will be jointly responsible for that. In this scenario, she will be responsible for making the remaining staff redundant, and paying their redundancy. For properly closing the provision, and dealing with any remaining moneys. If the preschool does not make sufficient money, she will be responsible for finding funding options, or again, making staff redundant. She will be accountable when OFSTED comes in. Will need to ensure safeguarding. Payroll. The committee will be responsible for liaising with the landlords of the premises. If annual accounts are not filed in time, OP will be jointly accountable. And so on, and so forth. I’m not saying it’s not important for volunteers to step up, and yes, if they don’t, then the provision will close. And it’s great experience and looks fab on a CV. But it’s not just ‘join the committee, go to a few meetings’ and it’s unhelpful to encourage people to get involved without knowing what it is they are getting involved with.

Numbers of children decreased during covid. Supply also decreased.
Numbers of children has sinced increased but supply hasn't caught up with demand.

Also few people with childcare qualifications really want to work 5 days for 3 hours (3pm until 6pm). It suited some people under the old Income Support work up to 16hrs rules without affecting benefitdls. But not under the Universal Credit rules.

There are huge demands for full-time staff in pre-schools, with the increased goverment hours.

@SMLSMLi don’t think anyone has said it’s easy.

And it’s quite understandable to feel frustrated at times. I felt exactly the same 30 years ago when I had to return to work with a breastfed 12 week old (end of paid mat leave back then) and then pay full fees (no subsidies back then) until the month he turned 5 (September baby!) and started school. And then as I explained in an earlier post, we barely saved any money for the primary school years because we ended up having to use a nanny type arrangement (very few schools did wraparound care back then.)

I think what’s coming across now though is that you just want to moan and expect someone to suggest a magic solution. There isn’t one. Our only way was to throw as much money at wraparound care during primary years as we’d thrown at nursery. Which is frustrating because your children are in reality getting between about 9-3:15 every day ‘free.’ But it is what it is. You have to manage things within the parameters of your life. So if you live rurally and use a small village school, your options are likely more limited than if you lived in a city with a range of primary schools nearby. But presumably there are benefits to you of living where you do.

i don’t think people are being unsympathetic (well maybe just a couple of random posters but ignore them!) We’re just trying to say yes it’s tough when you become a parent but managing childcare is part of the parenting deal and it’s best to try to find solutions even if they’re expensive ones.

I'm a team join the committee and I joined for my own kids.

Somebody has to do it, or there won't be an after school provision.

I agree, and said in my post, that somebody has to do it. But it’s not just ‘a few meetings, just join the committee’.

I think this sounds like a few different problems.

1. the school childcare closing - inconvenient but unlikely to change unless volunteers come forward and as you say everyone is busy so unlikely.
2. no childminders as it sounds like you live maybe rurally so not as many options.
3. no grandparents available to help.
4. inflexible jobs/working hours.

Id say your options therefore are

1. speak to the school club and school and see if there is a way for parents to chip in at a reasonable amount to keep it going.
2. move area/school to somewhere with more options (probably not a popular choice)
3. ask other parents or maybe on local community Facebook page etc if anyone else has any ideas there must be other parents who rely on this after school club too.
4. babysitter or nanny to do it who is around to do the wrap around care, likely to be expensive to find a reliable nanny.
5. change jobs or ask work for some flexibility given the circumstances until you can resolve it.

it’s rubbish but I think for those who live rurally this is an issue as there is less available. I used a childminder mainly and a grandparent for bits. But there were lots of childminders near me as we live in a town. I think most rural families either use a nanny or one parent doesn’t work.

My experience is that availability of childminder provision is more localised than just town vs rural. There is something about demographics - in general, a supply of childminders relies on a supply of people who have homes big enough to be viable to use as a childcare setting but who also want to/are able to do it for the money you can make - a lot of areas have a shortage of one or the other. But across the country, the number of childminders has reduced sharply - there were 48000 registered childminders in 2015, in 2025 there were 25,000: www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0490erp13o

The issue won't be solved by chipping in a few quid. The parents will be paying for it.

The issue is it will be a not-for-profit organisation with paid staff. But if they don't have a Committee they lose their not-for-profit status and then can't operate.

Parents need to step up and take over from the parents who no longer need it!

It's not ideal but I would take the view that being on the committee and trying to find time for a few meetings is infinitely better than having no childcare at all and so I'd just suck it up and volunteer, and encourage other parents in the same situation to do the same.

I appreciate it's hard both working full time. I work about 80 hours a week. But if you can't volunteer a bit, you're certainly not going to be able to sort wrap around childcare every day.

In terms of how we make it work, we moved somewhere near a school that had really reliable after-school provision even though it's ridiculously expensive. It was the primary consideration when picking a school, and the area we were going to live in. It is excessive, but is moving an option if you say the main issue is the village location?

I am a very compassionate person. I did give suggestions which are coming from personal experience. However, I am extremely concerned about the inability of many people to juggle their commitments without somebody else stepping in to help them. It is making us unproductive as a nation and I’m afraid I genuinely believe that it is actually in someway linked to declining mental health.

I think this quote might go someway towards my worry about people finding it increasingly difficult to hear the truth. My children are older now, but I will remember those days of trying desperately to juggle children and work and everything else besides. I was simply saying that in our life the choices we make and their ramifications are our responsibility and our responsibility alone. I am terribly sorry if you think that is a harsh thing to be saying.
I shouldn’t comment again because as he quite rightly say that wasn’t the point of the thread. The point of the thread is to find ideas for childcare support and I hope that you’re all able to offer help.

This is far from a compassionate post.

Again, I'm really not so convinced that it is that easy to be sure you are picking 'really reliable childcare', especially in a new place and without being psychic. I am guessing that if OP had asked both the school and current parents there they would have told her there was wraparound care run on a not-for-profit basis, which sounds great and solid. Now she's being told it might close.

I have a friend whose child's nursery closed with 6 weeks' notice. It had been open 23 years before that, and none of the parents expected it at all. She hadn't in any way knowingly chosen unreliable childcare but she still found herself up a creek, competing to find a space with all the other parents who suddenly needed it.

People keep recommending childminders, but that's the most vulnerable kind of childcare of all in terms of being reliant on an individual.

Again, I'm really not so convinced that it is that easy to be sure you are picking 'really reliable childcare', especially in a new place and without being psychic. I am guessing that if OP had asked both the school and current parents there they would have told her there was wraparound care run on a not-for-profit basis, which sounds great and solid. Now she's being told it might close.

Exactly this

I think it's more that it is a small village primary school, with no alternatives. Lots of small village schools are barely viable, let alone their wrap around provisions. You really don't need a crystal ball to realise there might be bumps ahead.

We were in exactly the same position, including the negative equity and the 15% mortgage. It was a rubbish time and car boot sales every weekend for the children's clothes were my friend and charity shops for DH and my clothes. We had both been made redundant, I got another full time job after ML for 5 months and my husband worked at 3 jobs. Times was hard. However - it did all work out and those times are just a memory now, so hold tight, OP, there will be a way through.

Not for profit afterschool with a Parents Committee should be fairly reliable. The Parents on the Committee NEED it to work.