How do working parents manage school pick-up with a long commute?

[Somethingsgotthagive]

DC currently goes to nursery and both me and DH have a very good commute.
We are planning to move further out to afford a house and DC will be in school next year, so that will mean longer commute and shorter childcare hours (afternoon clubs in various schools I checked close at 5:30pm or 6pm latest and the majority of these are oversubscribed anyway so difficult to get a place).

How do you manage school pick ups and wrap around care during school years if you both work full time? I can only WFH twice a week and need to be in the office the rest of the time, DH needs to go 5 days per week.
I am not a great fan of CM as I don't like the idea of having DC staying at home with a stranger and their family (please respect this, it's my personal opinion and feeling and I absolutely do not judge parents who do that). What are we supposed to do? Employ a nanny for pick ups only? are they even easy to find? Give up on the idea to have a house further out and just stay in a small flat in current area instead?

Private school.

They allow me to drop dc at 8am so I can be in London by 10am. Dc then stays until 6pm but there’s no pressure if one of us is delayed - one of the teachers will stay with him.

This really isn't just a private school thing

My kids state school wraparound is longer than that - 7:30-6:30

Yes, I know this is easier said than done but I nobody in our circles have two both parents working FT with long commutes and there's a good reason for that. Most of us make work decisions with the kids in mind and what is doable. DH and I both work PT now for childcare reasons and he is able to do one AM drop off on a working day when he WFH one morning a week. So we only need one AM and two PM wraparounds and we are lucky that my DPs kindly offered to do this. Otherwise DC would be at the school wraparound for those sessions.

And neither of us earn particularly well, DH earns ok but I'm a low earner. We make it work, we have to really.

Honestly, save yourself massive amounts of stress and stay where you are.

People have breakdowns over this kind of thing.

Don't do it!

@WeightoftheWorld not everyone can afford to work part time. Actually nobody in my circle of friends does, except one person who does compressed hours but this means she works 8-6:30 4 days a week.

@BreezyTrees I can see why, it's really hard :(

@Somethingsgotthagive once kids start school it isn't always cost effective to work full time unfortunately. You must have quite some circle.

Is this really true?

Wraparound at my children's school is about £650 a month for two children with tax free childcare.

Even if you only earn minimum wage, it's still cost effective to work.

Holiday clubs are more expensive but even there with tax free childcare, it's around £400 a week for two children so you might not make money if you are very low paid on those weeks but you'll still make money averaged out over the year.

I guess if you have a lot of children, it might not be cost effective to work but that's the only scenario I can see

Don’t move out to the Home Counties or if you do you need to change jobs or get a nanny.

Move to a cheaper part of London, lots of schools offer wrap around care, other clubs and holiday clubs. Contrary to a pp I’ve never known a school not to offer a club. Plus in London you may not just have train options for travel.

once kids start school it isn't always cost effective to work full time unfortunately.

Don’t agree with that

@spriots yeah I agree with this, it really doesn't make any financial sense for one of us to go part time unfortunately, especially as we are about to purchase our first home now with such high interest rates. If we owned our home outright or lived somewhere cheap maybe, but not in London.

@Miracleasap nursery is 3 times more expensive than wrap around care will be (yes including holiday clubs) so if it makes financial sense for us to work FT now, it will definitely also make sense once childcare costs will be much lower

I don’t know any parents who both work f/t with commutes unless they have help. My dc are well into primary & I’ve just increased to 21 hours.

Yeah if you’re earning well the issue is not affordability of childcare vs full
time wage, but availability of childcare and just managing the logistics is difficult.

Plus I’m at the point now where I’d really like to be the one picking up my child from school at least sometimes. DH works the equivalent of 4 days but spread over 3 so can do school pick up 2 days and I’m hoping to flex my hours so that I can do 1. I much prefer my kids being able to
come home to their own house and their own toys after school.

I think if one or both of you were to slightly reduce your hours and request flexible working agreement then it would make things much simpler without greatly impacting your earnings after tax.

I think that unless you have family support then parents both full time and long commute is not really workable with primary aged children. It seems that you would need a nanny to make it work. I am a lone parent with a long commute but my Mum and sister live locally and her children were at the same school as mine so I have back up (and work part time). So I start work at 10am which gives me enough time to drop the kids at school and get to work on time.

Find a childminder.
Nanny.
leave the office after lunch (I often do this. Showed my face but miss rush hour and use my lunch to commute).
change jobs.

A garden sounds great, why not just hold off for a year and see how you are managing to juggle everything. School is quite an adjustment for kids.

@SprinkleofSpringShowers because then it would mean moving DC to a new school if we decided to relocate elsewhere so better to do it before than after

I understand that working part-time may not be for you, but why wouldn’t it make financial sense? Your outgoings will be much less, won’t they? You say yourself that nursery is 3x the cost of wraparound care at school. Some might think that if they can manage on less money coming in (because their outgoings will be considerably less), then it would be worth going part-time for a few years for the sake of less hassle! You won’t be any better off if you have to pay for nannies/childminders etc.

@Somethingsgotthagive there are loads of movement in London schools. Or stay where you are for now & move in the later yrs of primary for secondaries.

I would just be mindful that London property hasn’t performed as well as other areas & in 5 yrs time or whatever a house may be even further out of reach.

@Pollipops1 yeah I know but I cannot possibly worry about 100 things at the same time and find a solution to all so I just have to decide what to sacrifice really

What part of London are you in now. Another to worry about is inner London school rolls are falling which isn’t good due to the current funding model.

Ahh sorry. I thought the school was to stay the same. In which case, I agree, better to move before than after.

Because her income is higher than her childcare costs

Her income is already higher than nursery costs so definitely will be higher than wraparound

We do choose to work part time because it's nice to have a bit of extra time at home but it's not financially sensible for anyone who isn't on a very low income with a lot of children.