Out of term care - independent schools

[SW16mummy]

Hi mums!
I'm currently in the process of registering DS for pre-reception or reception at some of the Dulwich / Herne Hill independent schools. However! What do you do for child care during the long breaks between terms? Or even half term? And are there summer camp options for 4+ children? Thx!

If you work full time, then for most it's a mixture of you take annual leave, alternating with your partner, some holiday clubs (most accept children for age 4, some age 5) plus some family/friends helping out, or teaming up with other mums and sharing childcare. If you live in an area with a high number of private schools then many clubs start when they break up.

I’m in a different part of London but there are definitely camps for 4 year olds and there even more options once they turn 5. My DD is in reception and this summer we’re doing the school’s own activity week, a sports camp, an art one and a dance one (run by the school’s ballet teacher). We always coordinate with classmates so there’s a group of them going together which works well. I don’t know if it’s something you’re considering but we did the school nursery before starting reception and that was really tough because it was term time only, not many holiday schemes will take 3 year olds and the few that do tend to be half days.

At my granddaughter's London prep school (not Dulwich area) there is holiday club for all ages. It's run by an external company, so I would imagine most schools have some kind of provision.

4 but in reception is a tough one for holiday camps, most camps only allow limited ages annoyingly. Works ok with childminders or possibly the previous nursery.

I'd be surprised if in areas with lots of private schools there wasn't provision for all their holiday periods but if there's not so many it can be a problem.

Where I am it's fine, there's (admittedly pricey) holiday clubs for all the different school breaks but my SIL struggles to cover the extra weeks.

In Dulwich there are loads of holiday camp options for children that age. Some won’t start until the state schools break up but we tend to
holiday then to miss the higher costs of going during the state school breaks anyhow.

It’s manageable and you can also get nannies / babysitters just for the term breaks.