School newbie - talk to me about half terms & holidays

[EdPops]

Hi,

Our eldest DS is starting reception in September. Both DH and I work full time and whilst we can manage the hours between school closing and us finishing work, half terms and holidays are a different challenge altogether.

What does everyone do for childcare during the weeks you're working but your kids are off school?

Just looking for ideas really so we can plan ahead. DS has just turned 4. We have no family nearby.

See if any of your neighbours or extended family have a sensible older teen. If you have a spare bedroom, you could employ one on au pair terms for the summer holiday, or if not employ one for the odd day babysitting.

It's not a bad way for a student to spend their summer vacation in their first year (as most internships are for second year)

Otherwise you have to hope for a club that's suitable and has space. Or take the financial hit and apply for 6 weeks parental leave to cover the summer.

And network like crazy once your DC starts school. Arrangements where a group of friends' parents co-ordinate sharing whole-day play dates can really eke out your leave.

Also, and a complete lifeline for me, was that DC's nursery would (subject to space) take pack their former children until they were about six-ish (they wouldn't take unknown DC, only those they knew would fit back in)

Most schools have around 13/14 weeks holiday. In our kids' early school years, dh and I took a fortnights annual leave together, and the rest separately. We were fortunate to be in jobs with better than average annual leave, but even the minimum U.K. entitlement is 5.6 days.

So: worst case scenario, OP, you and dh each take separate leave for the first year and that will cover just over 11 weeks, leaving you with just 3 weeks needing cover. I appreciate you probably won't want to do that, but you can certainly overlap just a portion of your leave. We actually found it quite nice that in school holidays our kids would have some 'mum days' and some 'dad days'.

It does get tricky with care once they're at school (the upside though is its way cheaper overall than paying nursery 52 weeks a year!) but if you manage your leave like this at least until you can get them into holiday schemes, it really is in reality just a handful of days that need paid cover. It's a long time ago now for us, but I think in the first year by only overlapping a fortnight of our leave, dh and i ended up with about two and a half weeks of having to find paid childcare. That's 13 days. Both

Oops!
13 days. That's nothing really after we'd been used to paying an entire salary on nursery care.

forgot to add most clubs will take 4 year olds so long as they are at school and the club has an early years person. My DD is summer born so this was a godsend.

He will quite likely be knackered at half term, so if you and DH can manage to take annual leave that would probably suit him better than holiday club, at least for some of the days. It will be different other years, but the first term is tiring, even for kids who are used to f/t nursery.

Unpaid parental leave is also an option, albeit an expensive one. Has to be taken in week long blocks (unless your employer agrees to smaller amounts) so unfortunately would be difficult to share between you and DH.

This is why I became a teacher. I spent most of my year stressing about childcare in the holidays and it gets harder as they get older snd will only go if a friend goes.

Barracudas and Supercamps both take under 5s I believe if you have either of those locally.

You will often find hol clubs based at private schools that are open to non students because they make use of the facilities at the private schools and also those schools have longer holidays to cover plus often attached nurseries/early years.

The no under 5s thing is a pain though. I remember struggling with a 2 week half term the years DD was 3 and 4.

I am teacher! Some years my DD's hols match but often they're different sometimes by as much as a week either end...

Sorry reversed it....14 weeks lol

You need different Ofsted registrations for Reception age (and younger) children, Year 1+ and aged 8+ so different clubs and providers will cover different things.
Often general childcare care clubs will be 5+, but sometimes specific activities like dance or tennis will take from aged 3 and there's an exemption to registration requirements.
Childminders will usually take all ages but are often more expensive than clubs.