Childcare options for INSET days

[OutandAboutMum1821]

Do any teachers/TAs have any advice about paid childcare options for INSET days?

Breakfast/after school clubs don’t run on those 5 days, I only have 1 GP alive who works, a local childminder told me she can’t accommodate ad hoc days. Friends I trust work themselves/don’t live locally. I feel a bit stuck.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated 😊

How old is the dc? I had friend’s dc on some insets and they had mine in the holidays as they were teachers.

Surely you’d just take a day off work? INSET days are arranged up to a year in advance.

Are you a teacher yourself? What about the child’s dad? Sounds like the only option is to take a day off yourself (or the child’s dad does) which I appreciate doesn’t work if you are the teacher and need to attend their inset day. Very occasionally I have seen people bring their kid with them to inset days and they sit at the back on an iPad but that depends on the nature of the training and the age/character of the kid.

Are both parents teachers?

I assumed OP worked in a school and that's the problem?

If the child is young (up to 6/7) some nurseries may take them if they run a holiday club. They’d be open anyway. But may only take during actual holidays like other clubs of course. Worth asking other child minders too as mine took kids of ad hoc days.

I meant as in I am considering returning to teaching/TA work myself, so I would need to be in for meetings on the INSET days. DH is a teacher, so zero flexibility.

I just wondered if there was something obvious others do that’s I’m missing 🤔

These days are set out in advance so if you don't have local childcare like grandparents etc or friends you can rely on for reciprocal care and your partner also can't accommodate caring for the child on these days then you'd need to employ a babysitter for the day.

School staff don’t get bookable annual leave, they can’t just opt out of a working day.

6 and 3 (7 and 4 from Sept when looking into this from).

We usually find the school's own holiday club runs on Inset days.

When I’m stuck for an odd day I hire a nanny for the day. I use an agency and the ladies she’s sent have always been brilliant.

Thank you, that’s a helpful suggestion.

Thank you, I’ll look into that.

Reciprocal care is your best bet. Offer to have your children’s friends for a couple of days in the holidays in return.

Thank you for this idea.

Swap with friends, you are in a good position to help others during the school holidays in return for help to cover inset days.

Yep find one of your children’s friends with 2 kids and offer to have them both for a day or two in the hols. Then the parent can work that day and take the inset off.

Thank you to several posters for the suggestion of reciprocal care.

I have had this difficulty as DH and I are both teachers. My Mum was usually able to have them but I have used the 18 year old daughter of a friend. You could look at a website like sitters or childcare.co.uk. When they were 8+ my school was sometimes OK with them sitting in my classroom for the day and I could check on them periodically.

If you get a job in a different school to your DH, usually you would have different inset days and the other parent would still be available for the DC?

This has never been the case at any school I worked at or my child attends. In most cases the hall would be needed as the only room big enough to accommodate all staff, and would also usually be where the holiday club would run. It might happen in some schools but would be unusual.

If you’re a TA you may find you’re not actually obliged to attend all insets. They attend some but I’ve definitely been to some which were teachers only.

If you live close to a county border and work in a different county to your husband then term times may not perfectly align so
you may find one of you is off when the other has an inset. I speak as someone who worked in an independent school and had to find 4 days of childcare at the start of one term as my state educated child went back that much later than me - I couldn’t believe it 🤣

DH and I are both teachers and we had this issue when DS was little. There would be 5-10 days a year we couldn't cover as we had no local help. We used sitters.co.uk. The people they sent were always great. In the end one person picked up most of DS's days (he was easy to look after and we paid over the odds). DS loved her- it worked really well.

Play date at their friends then return the favour another time.

Just realised part of my post earlier only makes sense if you and DC both have inset on the same day. When my DC were older primary age, my HT has let them come into my classroom on days when DC have had INSET at their school and my school is open.