Managing school hours

[bobbyrt]

This is a bit of an AIBU question too 🙈.

My husband would like to move house. I'm not against moving house but we keep getting stuck and arguing about one point.

We both work in professionals jobs with fairly long hours and pressure. Both do four days a week.

Our current primary has an excellent breakfast club, after school and holiday club that you don't struggle to get a place at if you need one.

The primary schools at the potential locations are much smaller and I am sceptical as to whether it would be the same.

Every time I bring this up he gets annoyed saying I am making barriers.

Am I being silly here? How do others manage?

DCs are 3 and 6.

That's not a silly point at all and no you're not making barriers, you're quite sensibly trying to eliminate them.

If he can't have a rational discussion about something that's quite obviously going to pose a problem should you move I wouldn't be entertaining the idea of a house move at all. In his eyes it's not worth the discussion because he's already decided it's obviously going to be a problem he leaves you to resolve should you actually move.

I had to change my hours because there is no after school provision at all my school 😞
And all childminders are full

This I think is true. Stressing about arranging care or trying to work with a small child at home I worry will become my problem

Are there no options to move house but stay close to the current primary school?

Look at cm and after school/holiday nannies as well

Contact the primary school and ask is there room at bf and asc

I’d say it’s a perfectly realistic concern that you should thoroughly consider rather than get burnt at a later date. Where we live we have a lovely village primary walkable from our house, but it’s so small they don’t do wrap around, let alone holiday clubs, so we’ve had to send our daughter to school in our nearest town instead. Childcare was sadly the main consideration in our school choice!

Say that you'll stop bringing it up if he convinces you it's not a barrier. He'll have to do a bit of phoning around etc.

Small doesn’t automatically mean they won’t have it, have you actually asked? Our tiny school (68 kids 4-11) has excellent wraparound. In contrast the big primary in a nearby town has sod all.

It’s a valid reason to not choose a school but only if you find out for sure, you shouldn’t assume anything.

That's why he's not discussing it. I suspect if you did move and faced issues with childcare he wouldn't do anything to solve the problem like make enquires or reduce his hours. Heck he sounds like such a peach he'd probably try and make it your fault.

This ^

How far away are you looking to move? We moved and I kept the children in their original primary.

I think the solution is to find out about the wraparound and holiday club options in the new place, rather than assuming because it's small that there isn't that option. We've had dc in two primary schools - both small (80-100 students) - one had no wraparound care/holiday club (100 students) and one has both wraparound care and a holiday club (80 students). Both rural village schools.

All that being said, we did move, actually from one small school to an even smaller one. And we love it and it's been a great life change (we also both have busy demanding careers). So until you investigate what the situation is, I wouldn't make assumptions.