Jury service summons! WTF do I do?

[letsleepingbabieslie]

I've just received a jury service summons. I know that childcare responsibilities are not considered sufficient reason to be excused from service (helloooooo Patriarchy) but what if you're home educating your children? In theory,a lthough it would be a nightmare, I could probably find childcare for them during the day but not someone to home educate them. Anyone have experience of this?
Thanks

You can ask to be deferred. You could probably find a childminder who could accommodate you depending on the age of your child/ children. I got called up just after I'd given birth to DD when I called to defer they told me no until I explained that I'm a childminder and the impact it would have on all the families who use my service. They agreed to remove me from the list and I've never been called back up.

Presumably if you’re home educating them you just declare the 2 weeks of jury service a holiday and educate them at another time?

As you say you can find childcare.

What about the other parent?
Presumably you don’t educate every week of the year? Can’t you shift your planning so the “holiday” time is your jury duty time?

if you ask to defer, you can only do this once and may well get called up again later.

To be honest, if the timing is good, I would opt to do it if at all possible. If you defer now, you might be called up during a period when you really can't do it (holiday, wedding etc) but wouldn't be able to defer again.

If it was a guaranteed two weeks, even three weeks, of jury service then I could make it work. Seriously, it would be a total holiday for me!! But jury service can last months, even years.
On days/times I'm not educating the kids, I work. The loss of earnings allowance from jury service won't cover the cost of childcare for the day (assuming I can find some) let alone give us anything to live on.
My partner works full time in the legal profession, so can't be looking after/educating the kids indefinitely.

But jury service can last months, even years.

Well yes, but that’s very very rare. The vast majority of people who do it are 2 weeks or less.

If two weeks is ok for you op, it should be fine. I was selected for a longer case and they asked us and lots of people were able to get out of that trial for various reasons (for example a grandmother who provided childcare for her grandchild).

Two weeks is standard (during which you may sit in a number of short trials), and if the trial is likely to be longer, the court will ask very carefully if any potential jurors cannot do a long trial. This is for their benefit, because the last thing they want is jurors dropping out of a long, costly trial and having to restart.

When I was picked I was asked if I was able to accommodate a case longer than two weeks. If you’re asked you can just say no you can’t

I did it. We were asked if longer than two weeks would be an issue. It was. So I got a number of much shorter cases.

Thanks - I didn't realise there would be a possibility to raise a problem at a later point. I thought that I had to either be excused from the start or that was it. I can manage if I get the chance to excuse myself from anything longer than 2 weeks.

I would say: don't plan to do any homeschooling at all, even if court usually finishes at 4.30 pm. I am used to hard work and long hours, and yet jury service absolutely exhausted me. I was fit for nothing every evening. Make sure you don't have work of any sort to go home to, if at all possible. Let the kids watch movies! Eat frozen pizza every night! Jury service is really interesting and worthwhile, but bloody he'll, its tiring.

I was called for jury service and just told them that I was home educating my children and there was no one else to do it. They released me from it with no argument.

I have literally just finished jury service and didn’t get one case for the whole 2 weeks. They call up far more people than they need so quite often you may not even be needed … they used to text us to come in the night before if we were.