School as child care

[Differentforgirls]

From another thread.

A poster said that state schools are there for helping parents to work. Therefore teachers are childminders. Teachers!

I think schools are there to educate our children and, though the staff go above and beyond these days, that is their primary function.

AIBU?

Did the working parents think “I’ll have a child and let other people bring them up “?

There are very few people who can afford to have kids and not work to keep themselves in any form of a lifestyle op, ergo people have to work. School is on at the same time as work which is helpful as otherwise all of a normal person’s wage will go on minding the child and people will have to leave the workforce. Would you rather one parent left the workforce? Or do you think nobody should have kids?

School provides structure and care, allowing parents to work - it's not just about academics, many parents view schools as a means to facilitate their work schedules, rather than a comprehensive childcare solution.

However schools can literally be childcare settings for parents , hence why some schools provide breakfast and after school clubs

Clearly the primary purpose is to educate children. But most people do assume that there children will be in school at least 9am-3pm so by default, it's also childcare, and we'll arrange our work around that and outsource the wraparound hours. If school suddenly stopped being available to us (COVID) then suddenly every working family would have a childcare problem on their hands.

Obviously the answer is no…school is for education.

But I am highly suspicious of this argument because it’s usually a(nother) stick to beat working parents with.

I remember during COVID whenever someone complained about having to home school kids and do a job someone else would always snap back that working parents needed to stop using school as childcare, as if we didn’t know it wasn’t childcare. As someone who worked 15 hour days during lockdown to keep the lights on and didn’t get any furlough or any of this joyful downtime which some people still bang on about the whole thing gave me minor trauma.

Yes school is for education not childcare. But the reality is many parents couldn’t work without school. I don’t think that invalidates the primary purpose of school and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting that the secondary purpose of school serves parents to enable them to work, which is no bad thing.

The two things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.

It is childcare though. It has numerous educational benefits of course but it’s remiss to claim it doesn’t aid parents in going to work.

Well tbh I feel increasingly like I am there for childcare / crowd control only with a smattering of feeding / caring / clothing children at the same time.
My ability to actually teach - in a class with multiple children with EHCPs ( which are conflicting) a number with SEN plans and a further few with needs, with no classroom support, no money for supplies, even heating being seen as a luxury is feeling more and more impossible. Many parents are just fine with that as long as they can drop their children and run.
Woe betide me having to ring and say their child is ill. And very often I have ill children sent in regardless as to whether they are infectious/ well enough to cope. I do not think education is the primary purpose in a lot of parent’s view.

Of course school acts as childcare. Otherwise the government wouldn't stop benefits once children reach free education age. I'm not saying that's it's primary purpose but it definitely is one of its purposes and it's partially why children can no longer go home for lunch and why schools are encouraged to provide wraparound care, as it enables parents to work. It's also why children of key workers were entitled to attend school during lockdown.

I don't believe schools should be considered childcare, nor do I believe teachers are childminders. I also absolutely disagree that working parents are "letting someone else bring up their child" because they use wraparound care. There wouldn't be much of a need for teachers if working people stopped having children.

To be fair @twinkletoesimnot if we choose to not send our ill kids to school we get threats from the school to send enforcement fines and called in to discuss their absence, I think the vast majority of parents would rather not send an ill child into school but we are repeatedly told the only people who should be able to make that decision are the school. My DD thankfully is not a sickly child so her attendance is 100% at the moment (luck more than anything) and we get a message every week congratulating us and thanking us for having 100% attendance and reminding us that the policy is to send them in and let the school decide if they are too ill.

Of course it’s education and childcare! Definitely both, skewed towards childcare at reception level and then towards education the older the children get. Have you ever been in a reception classroom to see how many minutes of learning are done a day? It’s not many! And that’s fine, because 4 year olds can’t learn for 6 hours a day!

Also, parents are childcare and teachers too. We look after our children but also teach them- how to talk, how to read, how to ride a bike, how to cook pasta etc. So it’s not demeaning to teachers to say they are both too. As a PP said, they act “in loco parentis” in your absence!

Both I think in 2026. I’m a TA. They do clearly serve more than one function these days.

Schools and the mandate to send children to school existed well before people bothered with childcare!

So YANBU if only for that reason.

Yes, schools do care for children, but that isn’t why they’re there.

Also - a childminder is a term with a defined legal meaning. It’s not anyone who ever looks after a child. By that token, parents are childminders too!

School has my child 8.30 - 3.30 every day so of course if something happens, like my child is sick, I don't have childcare in place out of blue. The main purpose of school isn't childcare, however it does have children for the majority of the day on a week day and very obviously that means they are the care for the children during the week. Anyone who doesn't understand that is just a bit thick.

I appreciate that schools are there primarily to educate children but in doing so they do carry out care and responsibility of children while the children are at school.
Prior to the Second World War children used to go home for lunch. In the war mothers worked so schools were told to provide facilities for lunch. After the Second World War it was decided to keep it that way as it was easier for working families.

It would seem that a lot of them did.

The government certainly considers schools a form of childcare, for children under 13.

This from CAB, explaining conditions for receiving Universal Credit.

"If you’re in the all work-related activity group
Your work-related activity should still fit in with looking after your child.

While your child is under 13 your work coach has to make sure your work activity fits around school or nursery hours. This includes the time it takes you to travel there and back."

Please tell us all about your life as a Stay at Home, home schooling mum. I have to assume based on this comment you do not send your children to school, it would be terrible to think of your poor poor children being raised by the school 5 days a week. How do you manage to withhold your disdain for all of the feckless uncaring shitty non-parents who just pop out babies and then ship them off to school every day for someone else to raise?

It’s both. The education can’t happen without the children also being taken care of. Education also encompasses more than reading, writing and arithmetic, children also learn important social skills and self care skills in that setting. That isn’t to say teachers aren’t educators, of course they are, but they also care for children at the same time.

I always think it’s weird when schools close for weather or other unforeseen circumstances and the “school isn’t childcare” brigade come out when working parents say they find it hard. Of course it’s childcare. That may not be its primary purpose but it fulfils that role, it’s unreasonable to expect that parents don’t do anything else with that time because they have to be free to parent because school isn’t childcare.

Parents are stretched to the limit, both parents have to work long hours these days as are many grandparents.

Many work very hard and still struggle financially because of the cost of living.

There's obviously some crossover between parents and schools. Parents provide some education and (hopefully) support schools. Schools should care for children while in their charge. Childcare is not the primary purpose of a school.

Unless you want to go and sit next to your child all day while they learn, school is childcare while they're there. Your child is being looked after by persons that are not you, so it is childcare.

Exactly.

The 2 year funding isn’t childcare either. It’s free education. So I agree with you OP, school isn’t childcare and neither are the 2 year funded places.

I do think though that the school week is crucial for a lot of parents to be able to work. So they probably do see it is a form of childcare or at least child free time, even though the primary reason the children are there is for the children’s benefit and not the parents’.

We live in a capitalist society, of course a function of sending kids into school is to get adults to work. Otherwise we would all stay at home to raise kids? They wouldn’t really need maths etc if no one worked?

This 100%!