Inset days

[Perfect28]

Two working teacher parents to (luckily) just one child. Child has started school this year and we are finding inset days impossible to manage. 5 per year, usual wraparound childcare is closed on insets as they mirror the school. No family less than 300 miles away, my mum has come up twice now but she won't be able to come up 5 times a year for the next however many years. As we are teachers working from home or requesting annual leave is impossible. We can take parental leave but that has to be in blocks of one week at a time so not helpful here.

Just posting in case someone has any grand ideas or suggestions I've not yet mentioned. Otherwise I guess it will have to be sick days? Not hugely helpful when I'm already managing chronic illness.

Anyone?

I feel for you! My school is great and offers childcare in the school during inset for the children of teachers. But we are a big school with lots of staff.
Could it be something you broach with SLT. Perhaps gather info on how many people would use it before asking the normal wrap around care provider (if primary) for costs?

At schools where I've worked teachers can bring their children in for INSET days. Some stay in their parent's class, others might go to their year group with the agreement of that class teacher.

Also I used to go to school with my Dad on 'Baker Days', as they used to be called, back in the 1980s. I used to love it!

Holiday club
Playdates with their friends (I'm sure the parents would love it if you could cover some days in the school holidays in exchange)
Childminders
Friends

As teachers, surely you already know about training days? Schools have to publish their holiday calendar well in advance - we’ve recently updated ours for next year.
Lots of schools have at least 1 training day as twilights, look at using a childminder / friend / other parent. For example, agree to have their child a couple of days in the school holiday and they have yours on a training day.

Request that they do online training, so you can wfh. It would be a good example for the school to set to the community, as teachers would not have to drive in. Online schools do all their training this way, so there should be no problem, as the staff say it's much more efficient online.

If you can't take DC into school with you for INSET day, ask their friends' parents for a playdate swap. You have the friend for the day during the school holidays (when most other parents are desperate for childcare) and they have yours for the INSET day.

That's a nice idea but only works if the children and parents have the same INSET days. If they are at different schools they might not.

Don’t you have any friends? When I was teaching my DC would go to friends for the day - I would reciprocate in the school holidays or at weekends. Before I went back to work a friend would pay me to have her children when she was at college.

Make good friends with another parent. Offer if they can help with some inset days you can help with the holidays. Win win. Start with your child’s good friends.

Childcare swaps with other parents. Or babysitter but you may need to be very organised arranging this if other childcare providers are closed as other parents will also be booking the babysitters.

When my girls were young, I’d organise play dates and reciprocated at a later date. Worked for me 🤷‍♀️

It might be worth asking the staff at the wrap round care if they do ad hoc babysitting? It's possible that they might like to do this to earn some extra money.

We are both secondary, at separate schools. He is in primary, so no it would not be appropriate to take him to school with us.

I appreciate all the comments about friends and play dates, but we are both autistic and this social elemental of parenting is really difficult. It's also another task that would likely fall to me as the more socially masking parent so I'm really hoping for alternatives because this honestly fills me with dread.

I thinkmin this situation you need to go and speak to your head and ask about it. One of you will likely need to take unpaid leave.

What solutions have you come up with? Essentially you need to find someone to look after your child. The options are one of the child’s parents, a friend or relative or pay for childcare. I’m not sure what else you think would work?

Ask one of their friend’s parents if they’ll have them, and then offer them a day in the holiday in return?

@Hobbitfeet32thank you, I appreciate that perhaps I'm just having a bit of a whinge. Friends all work (don't most people), family are miles away- mostly in other countries, childcare is not available otherwise I would happily pay for it, I'm not complaining about paying for childcare!

Seems the only option is to rely on playdates (really stressful option because we are a neurodiverse family and friendships are difficult for all of us) or quit working.

Feels more and more like working is not worth it. Sometimes I need to vent!

Ask other parents to do it in exchange for you doing a days babysitting in the school holidays

Sympathy OP. If DH was a teacher it would be impossible.

I’d ring in sick. I’m not sure what else you can realistically do.

Me and husband both work 4 days. He has Monday off and I have Friday off. Helps to cover the inset days as they tend to either be a Monday or Friday

In the area I live in there are childminders who run an ad hoc childcare service. That would be perfect for you so worth looking to see if there is similar where you are?
Im surprised, though, that all your inset days are at the same time. That’s not my experience at all, I definitely had a child in and and a child out when I had one at primary and one at secondary.

Also not all play dates have to be reciprocal. I often have kids here. I don’t do it so that mine can go to there’s. It doesn’t have to be transactional necessarily

Is the school holiday club not open? Or can you find a babysitter for a one off?

That would work well. Unfortunately our schools both tell us we can't choose our day off and even contractually we could be timetabled across all 5 days even on a part time contract. Given that we are in different schools we figure that it would be practically impossible to align working days. I also work 4 days which does help when these school events happen to fall on that day.