AIBU to presume this would be PRESCHOOL swimming

[Bathsheba]

I've just some back from a holiday staying at my Aunt's outside Edinburgh.

My 2 eldest girls love swimming so it was really important that one day we went to a swimming pool. I checked all the local pools and found that 2 had a Kids Aqua Fun Session on a Friday afternoon between 1 and 3pm. (Now, just to clarify, this is every Friday afternoon, nothering at all to do with Easter holidays etc..)

So, we get the girls ready (my girls were off last week from school and playgroup but the schools where my Aunt lives weren't), turned up at the pool only to be turned away as my girls were too young (they are 6 and 3).

It turns out that ALL the schools where my Aunt lives finish at lunchtime on a Friday, so all the community facilities have to put on activities for School aged children on a Friday afternoon as it causes so many childcare issues. So my girls were turned away because the Kids Aqua Fun session on a Friday afternoon between 1 and 3 is for over 8s.

So was I wrong to presume an activity that was scheduled for every week during conventional school time was for preschoolers - I asked them to clarify on their website for visitors to the area (quite a tourist area) that this session was for Over 8s..

And also, Am I wrong to thing that its completely weird and bizarre and must cause a huge amount of problems for all the schools to finish at lunchtime on a Friday - it must cause huge childcare issues and I thought we were wanting kids in school and getting more of an education, not less....

In the end I did a bit of phoning around to find a pool that they could go into and they had a great time swimming but I was a bit dumbstruck initially...

YABU to not have phoned and checked as you state in your OP that it was very important to go swimmign while you were there.

For all you know, you could need to book in advance, then you would be complaining that you had assumed you could just turn up and get in.

When soemthing is important to your childtren you check, rather than have them dissapointed IMO

Edinburgh schools close on Friday afternoons, it used to be that different schools closed on different days but a few years ago it was made Fridays. Personally, I quite like having that afternoon with DC1 - but it does make it harder for work. Everyone part-time worker I know with children at school does not work Fridays.

Schools finish at 11.50 on Friday, so for anyone with any sort of commute, it's impossible to go to work at all that day. Consequently, part-time mums don't want to work Fridays at all - which is a nightmare for job-sharing.

Schools manage it by limiting the breaks for the rest of the week. Personally, I think it is dubious - I know compressed weeks are popular for adults, but cutting out pm break and cutting lunch time short doesn't seem right for 5 year olds?

CPD for teachers on Friday afternoons? Well, all the teachers I know are having quality time with their own DCs. Teachers up here have just negotiated 7 development days to adjust to the new Curriculum for Excellence - and they are always on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. Clearly they value their friday afternoons off too much to do CPD?

With 12 1/2 weeks holiday (very different to English hols), 1 1/2 weeks training days and most of every friday off - probably never safe to assume kids are in school here.

Actually, thinking about it - an impressive (if successful) MN campaign would be getting CPD days moved to Fridays when most mums are off anyway.

The hassle of having to arrange for childcare for an additional umpteen days is the pits.