Parents that work full time - how do you manage the school holidays?

[Pinkjenny]

Dd starts school in September, I will be working:

Monday 10am - 2pm
Tuesday 10am - 2pm
Wednesday 10am - 2pm
Thursday 10am - 5pm
Friday 10am - 5pm

Ds will be in nursery MOnday - Wednesday, and with my mum on a Thursday and Friday. I have just calculated that for the M, T and W on the holiday weeks, dh and I will need to take 28 days out of our holiday entitlements.

I don't think the school has a holiday club, but I have emailed them to ask. How do you configure it in your family?

We are both teachers

bigTillyMint - you see, this is why my mum always wanted me to become a teacher!

We use our next door neighbour. We take it in turns to have one day. She uses Monday and I do Wednesday. The rest of the week we have booked the kids into holiday club. As somebody said it is not possible for us to take a family two week holiday together due to covering the school holidays but it is only for a short term and we do go away for a week as a family a year and have weekends away. Be careful you get a good holiday club, my DS used to hate some until we found a couple of good ones. If you have relatives near you then they can be used to full potential. Grandparents often like to help in the holidays but not commit to full childcare provision. My DS wants to stay at home now on his own but still slightly too young. Can do when in Secondary school from Sept if my neighbour in next door.

When they were 4, 5 and 6 I often sent them back to nursery in the holidays and nursery flexible enough to look after them well. And they loved going back and seeing all their old nursery things and being the big ones. My DD who is 4 loves looking after the 2 and 3 year olds. But for my son, who is now 8, it just doesn't work, he is too old. He goes to our child minder and luckily there is generally another mindee who likes playing cricket with him. Fingers crossed and this arrangement will stay in place for years...

And yes, small fortunes are being spent.

sageygirl - I bet they are!