What happens to nanny arrangements when children reach school age?

[chisigirl]

just what it says in the thread title, really. A couple of friends in the same situation are thinking about this. What typically happens when children who are looked after by a nanny start full time school? Do nannies usually want to leave and work for families who have babies and toddlers? Do school age children with no young siblings go to CMs usually?

Does anyone have any arrangements that work out well? I'd prefer the DC to come home to their own house after school but would a nanny be bored by this set up (ie no children to look after for 6 hours a day)? It's not all right to ask a qualified nanny to do non-childcare duties, is it?

thanks.

I have nannied for school age children. I had them full time in the holidays and picked them up after school. I shared with another family with a younger child so had him throughout the day too.

I'm on the edge of this (Ds in Year 1, DD doing 5 mornings a week, will rise to afternoons after Christmas) and we are going to carry on with our current nanny.

DH and I work till 7 every day so we would have to find someone to cover 3-7pm daily. Then there are 3 x half terms (one of which is 2 weeks), 3 weeks Christmas, 3 weeks Easter, 8 weeks summer holidays. Plus some inevitable sickness.

Our nanny does their clothes shopping, washing, ironing etc, food prep, all cooking and cooks for us most days as well (and is a FANTASTIC cook). She sorts out homework (sort of does the first cut with them, for us to finish when we get in). Sorts doctors and dentist appointments (plus random others like foot doctor for blardy veruccas). There are lots of things to sort out with the school - blardy costumes for things etc and she will sort all that. She's also happy to run errands for us (pick up parcels from Post Office/sort out builders etc).

Its an expensive way of doing it, but for us there really isn't any other way. On the plus side our "peace of mind" is very high.
On the minus side its chuffing expensive.

LOLOL Issy. Look - I answered my assignment without even knowing it had been set!

we have a variant on the nanny share - a nanny with her own child. It will have worked well for 2 years when it ends - which will be because her child is starting school in sept 08 and she can't do two school pick ups. Don't know what the next stage in our childcare dilemma will be - and determinedly not thinking about it yet.

many thanks Issy, Jura, NAB3 and Anchovy...

Lots to think about there! I suppose there is no perfect solution but you just have to balance out the pros and cons of each option and decide which of the factors are most important to you/your family.

Mrs Wobble, I can see a nanny share with nanny's own child having lots of positives. A prospective nanny suggested it to us when DS1 was tiny and it wouldn't have worked then but I think it could be great when the DC are older...

Issy - solution 5 - divorce your husband and pack your children off to their stepmother when you are busy . This is quite a popular solution to judge by the stepparenting threads... Grrrrrrr.

We are facing this dilemma too - slightly different situation in that we only have a nanny two afternoons a week, as we both work part time.
One of my concerns is that as the children get older, I'm not sure that being with the nanny is the best option - I would prefer them to be able to spend more time with their friends (in theory possible, in practice it isn't working out like that) or doing sports. A really good, well-structured after school club would be a good option (ours is just about acceptable, but not something I would actively choose for them).
So, at what age do you take the plunge and try to do without formal childcare? And how does it work in school holidays- can they really survive doing several weeks of holiday club?

elliott - here in France, where more women have worked full-time for longer than in the UK, there are lots of holiday solutions for childcare, including camps (colonies). Children seem to adore camps and they are well structured and organised. I went to some French colonies as a teenager and loved them and my stepsons go now and complain like mad when they have to come home again.

I think (IME) that working out the day-to-day childcare when children are in all day school is much more of a headache than holiday care.

Anna, if only I could be confident that the local provision would be up to the standards of the French camps...there's not a whole lot to choose from around here.
We would cope ok with term time, since we could rearrange our work hours so that we coudl pretty much do the pick ups every day between us - but then come the holiday, we have only two days a week covered...

We abandoned the Anchovy approach when the peace of mind part of the deal began to evaporate - our (expensive) full time nanny got very bored whilst the children were at school and actually got into the rut that what little there was to do didn't get done either - a state that is very recognisable to me as I know that I'm much better at getting things done when I'm busy.

This gradually became very irritating as we ended up paying a nanny to go to the gym and ignore large piles of ironing.

I may have been unlucky or handled it badly but the Anchovy trade off stopped working for us.

MrsWobble - I would say that that is a large part of why my stepsons' nanny is now failing to deliver - she doesn't have nearly enough to do and sits around knitting and not doing the little she has to do for them. Sweaters and nits are proliferating simultaneously these days.

a good friend of mine does something similar and hires an undergraduate au pair to cover the summer holidays - she manages term time with a combination of part time hours and after school clubs. she reckons they get interesting and intelligent people - and from her point of view most importantly people she can bear to share her house with for 10 weeks