JOB- WHAT DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO?

[GReD677]

I haven't worked in around 3 years, eldest is 3 youngest is 18months.
Really want to get back to work 2 days a week, I do feel a bit selfish but just feel like i need to for my own wellbeing.

My eldest is going to school next year Septemeber 2027 and needing something that allows me to pick her up drop her off and have half terms off.

I did a online L3 TA course last year and passed took around a year but I am just not sure I want to do that job, seen so many bad things about how TA's get treated and expecting far too much, unless my daughter actually attends the school were i would he working in still will not be able to drop her off and pick her up.
Im thinking of cleaning - can be flexable and choose own hours but i clean my place all day every day and just would be exhausting!

What do people actually do?!

I work in the media...WFH so its easy peasy

Civil service admin job. Flexible working so I often work 7-3 with school drop off and pick ups in the middle. Go into the office once a week but again flexible around school hours.

School holidays me and my husband each take annual leave to cover it or in some cases use holiday clubs.

Term time working is really very unccommon.

Dh and I both self-employed. He runs a company connected to the restaurant and catering industry. I’m a freelance copyeditor, though very niche specialisation working with academics (so I have a PhD in a specialist field). Neither something you can just pick up, but YOU probably have a set of skills that lend themselves to being self-employed. You just have to figure out what they are.

Even when I was employed by someone else, one of us was always around to do the school run. One of us works a shorter day when the other one needs to work a longer day. We trade off on school holidays depending on who needs what days. Only ever needed to use childcare in school holidays on occasion, or for something like parents evening for older one and we both need to be there (then might book youngest into after school club).

I work in an office and my husband is a mechanic. Our son started school this year and we manage all drop offs & pick ups ourselves with my Mum helping twice a week.

School holidays will be different, husband is off this week but will need to use a holiday club type thing.

I’m an engineer, when my children were tiny I worked on a supermarket till because I could get hours that wrapped around DH’s. It’s a nice sociable job, and not especially taxing after a sleepless night.

Are you a single parent or do you have a partner in the mix?

We both work full time, but we have worked it to stagger our hours. Husband does school drop off and works 10-6, I work 6-2.30 and do pick up.

Being a childminder again definitely seems like it may work, what was it in particular that you struggled with before?

I was a lone parent when I had our first, I worked part time, on my working days I used nursery and when he started school I used wrap around care at his primary school. My employers needs changed so I increases to four days, but kept the same hours, so when that started I didn’t need wrap around care as I was doing shorter days. That definitely worked well for me.

Funnily enough I'm a teaching assistant 🤣 I trained as a teacher but quit doing the QTS at the end of the second year of my degree. TA has nothing on teacher, even with the increased workload that TAs have to manage so it's a nice trade-off for me. Kids are 8 and 3 and I don't see myself moving on from TA until the youngest hits high school at the earliest

Its hard OP. DH and i have always worked and its been a juggle. We just have had to do our best to make it work, eg I did nights and weekends for a while and DH altered his shifts to wait till I got home before he headed in to work etc. Its bloody hard and absolutely exhausting but our kids are older now and we are delighted to have progressed our careers.

I'm a TA and I love it - but I have always worked with children. The pay is rubbish, but while my DC is young it's worth it to be term time. (Toying with qualifying as a teacher but worried I'll be too old by the time DC is old enough to fend for himself a bit more.)

We are lucky that both DH and I work from home full time. This means we dont need to use breakfast clubs as we can drop off at get back home for 9am. My DD goes to after school club twice a week and in the other days I will take lunch at 3pm to pick her up. She will then have half an hour or so relaxing, drawing, watching TV before husband finishes work for the day. Holidays we use our annual leave, holiday clubs and grandparents. Working from home definitely makes pick ups/drop offs easier.

I must say it's easier to get flexible work or remote work once you have been in a company for a while. Your unlikely to get flexible/remote/very part time work without being in a company for a while.

This is what my parents did - mum worked a call centre type job in the evening and a Sunday retail shift. Not what she wanted to be doing, but what worked!

I did a L3 supporting teaching and learning last year and I think its either this or cleaning :) do you really enjoy it? How long you been doing it and what years are you in? Sorry for l the questions lol

What years are you in? Would your children go to same school?
I did the l3 supporting teaching and learning course last yeat had my heart set on it but just read so many bad things and my friends are TA's but I guess it depends on ehat school ect?

No worries! I've worked in a couple schools since graduating (and a couple of nurseries but nursery really isn't my bag) exclusively reception based in my first school and now in my current school I've done 1, 5/6 (mixed year groups), reception for a little bit and back to year 1. I absolutely love it ❤️ it's hard work though for sure with behaviour and stuff like that. I do 6 SALT children and week (1-2x weekly) and multiple other interventions as well as PPA cover for an afternoon a week in my class.

Things are going to get a bit more intense after half term as I'll be taking over a phonics group and a few more SALT sessions due to staff changes.

I'll have been at my current school 3 years in march and I can't see myself working anywhere else for a long time ❤️

Just reading your last post to another PP - my kids go to a different school. I wouldn't want them in with me. They need their space to grow and I need my space to be me and not mum for a bit!

I work weekends and DH works weekdays. It's the only thing that works around the DCs because they have additional needs. I used to be a TA and it was awful.

There's a very wide variety of jobs that are flexible op. Just look for something you would enjoy and have the skills for. You may have to start on more than 2 days. Jobs that part time don't often come up. Starting on 3 or 4 days much more likely and then you can drop your hours once you have been there a while and they know you. I started full time, dropped to 3 days then did 4, now back up to 5. I work term time. Senior management role ( was a project manager with first child). Civil service.

There's no magic answer. I got a low paid job that had an attached qualification the employer paid for when DD was 2, stayed there until first year of school then moved to a much better paid job and work part time around school hours. I don't work term time though, only have one child and WFH most of the time so a combination of leave, holiday clubs, DH being involved and occasionally WFH while DD entertains herself. She is 8 though

Definitely depends on the school! Mine has a great SLT which makes all the difference.
I work in KS1, like you I worked in early years before and it's felt like quite a natural transition. I feel like all those years experience really help.

My DC goes to a different school, but quite a few of my colleagues have/had children there with no issue, although I think that really depends on the child/parent too. It's a big school which helps, they generally just don't work in their childs year group and then hardly see them!

Yeah i get that to be honest, you need to me you for a while x

I’m a teacher and use wrap around alongside an early start/finish nursery - both have a 730 drop off.
husband is wfh in IT. Starts early, finishes early.

You do have to be practical - having two under three and not working at all in three years is goi g to be a challenge to get into the kind of thing you want. Flexible working is a day one right, but conversations at interview are important imo.

TA is good as it’s term time, but it’s a very important role and shouldn’t just be so you can do as little as possible (you reference being asked to do too much?). School admin, catering and cleaning all possibilities. In your case if you’re on your own as it seems, I’d be prioritising stability and things such as pension contributions and sick pay.

I just never saw my job as something that had to enable me to do childcare especially as that stage of your life is so short. Instead, I chose the career I want to do and I paid for the childcare I needed. It was expensive, we didn’t have family around, but it paid off as I have a career I enjoy and the financial security eventually paid off, even though there were times I was bringing back pittance for full time work.

I started mystery shopping when mine were young and then branched off into merchandising and price checking. Another option could be UGC work.

I think I’d look to do cleaning in your shoes, but be prepared people might not be happy with no clean in all the school holidays, it’s quite a lot of the year. That’s where it might be better to work for a company who could offer you term time and sub you for someone else in the holidays.

I don’t begrudge my cleaner having time of at all, but having to work and use wrap around and holiday club, it’s a big slog to then have to do all the school holiday cleans if needed too. I’d be fine covering probably 8-10 weeks of cleaning spread through the year, but six weeks solid in summer would be tough.

In terms of what I do, I have a DP but he is not my DC’s father and we have our own houses. I am an accountant working in industry, so I manage a team who cover both finance and information. My role is more advisory but we are a delivery function for data/finance reporting also. I work 34 hours a week across four days and 99% is from home. It took me a degree and professional accountancy qualification to do the route I did and get to where I am by my age, so lots of study!