Is anyone else wondering how they're going to juggle school and work? Or already struggling?

[SpottyTeacakes]

Dd starts in September

The parents information session is on a Tuesday morning. Dp and I both work (I work part time) and dd's settling in sessions are on four consecutive Fridays 10:45-1:05 when I also work.

From September she has to go half days, which I know will be better for her, but I can't pick her up when I'm working!

It's really stressing me out. Atm my parents look after her but it's a twenty minute drive from theirs to her school and I can't ask them to do that.

I have no idea what I'm going to do it's really stressing me out!

Just tell the school that she will be starting full time on the first day of term - as she is legally entitled do. It's their problem as to how they accommodate that.

DD has been at 3 primaries - one for nursery, one for the first 3 weeks of term and then the 3rd that we got via the waiting list.

One has 30 intake and the other 2 have 60 intake. None of them did any kind of staggered intake - and that included the nursery which was full days - and all they all did fine. I really do not understand why some schools seem to need to make working parents lives quite so difficult when they don't have to.

DD has had to get used to us not being able to go on trips, come to school events and so on. We try for at least one of us to attend things like the Nativity play, and the school are very good in having evening slots for parents evenings that are reserved for working parents (and a choice of 2 dates).

It is really hard at first - especially if you have no family or friends locally. Not being at the school gate at drop-off and pick-up also makes it hard to get to know other parents.

Don't kill yourself over managing the ridiculous staggered start, just inform the school that a staggered start is not feasible and so she is going full days from the start (put it in a letter if you don't want to have to tell them verbally). I'm sure other parents will be doing the same.

Well we've checked with the childminder and they're full so she either goes full time or I quit work. I will speak to the school today.

Spotty have I read you other posts right that it's only the summer born children who start on half days? If so it shouldn't be beyond them to move your DD to the not-summer-born group who start full time.

And on a side note, our village school does that. Summer born start doing just 1 day a week for the first few weeks and only get to full time at half term. Everyone else starts full time. Surely if you're saying the younger children need more help settling then the last thing you should do is exclude them from 4/5 of the settling and friendship building time.

Yes it's just people born after Easter. What's your dd doing? They're both June birthdays aren't they?

If you are in England then they have to take them full time from the start even if they try to tell you otherwise. Ours is still trying to flog a Jan start for summer borns but acknowledge that they will take them in September. You could alternatively delay start until November, continuing at normal Nursery and then launch straight in.

I don't think that you are alone in not being aware of the plans before now. I still don't know the settling in plans for ds in September and he is my third child at the school. The girls both had different settling in routines and the school probably won't tell us ds's until July.

Spotty - you said you need to cover your parent's holiday. How will this work when your child is in school? If you cover your parents and you need to cover 14 weeks of school holidays nobody has that much leave even if you and your husband never take time off together.

I think you may need a final solution how to deal with no school time.

Sorry if I sound harsh, I found school a lot more trickier than nursery and I sort out our annual leave each September when we get the dates from school for the next year.

Yes DD is June. I'm still waiting to see what happens in September, I assume we'll be told at the information evening next week. But going by what was on the reception classroom door when we looked around last September, they split the class (pan 30) into 4 groups and they do half days in various combinations of 2 groups at a time, then a mix of half and full days and are all doing full days before half term. No differentiation by birthday, unless you ask for it.

We've booked her after school club place, and I need to talk to them about whether they cover the half days too-they also have a preschool so in theory can take them.

And now we're looking at moving DS from the nursery we love to the preschool who run the after school club so we can manage picking up.

It isn't cheap though- £11 a day for after school, £5 a day for breakfast club.

Ds is in Reception
DH works full time
I work 3 days
Parents all several hundred miles away
Siblings all abroad

For settling days last summer, some were on my days off, but I changed my day off one week. His nursery (v close to school) took children whose parents were at work

For the first 2 weeks of half days, DH and I took annual leave (we didn't have a summer holiday). We also had one of DS's friends one afternoon.

DS goes to breakfast club at his old nursery and they take him to school (also have a younger dd at nursery) and after school club at school.

Holidays are a combination of kid's club (school after school club), leave and having friends's dc/ds going there.

It is a very fine balancing act, which is massively cocked up by strikes.

Then there are sports days, Harvest Festival, nativity, parent's meetings, Mother's Day assembly, open days and INSET days. I changed my work days to have Fridays off, which deals with most INSET days. I am extremely fortunate to work flexi time, which helps with the rest of school's demands on my time.

Wrap around care isn't cheap, no.
In fact breakfast and after school club, milk, dinners, uniform (£12 for a poly rich sweatshirt just cos it had some embroidery!), constant fundraising, holiday club, trips - about as much as nursery after 15 hrs funding kicked in.

I do think you need to find a solution too, long term. My H and I had 4 days off together last year because we both used our annual leave to cover pick up for the 1st half term when DD2 started reception (by taking half day holidays), and because we need to have a number of days in the bank so to speak for impromptu calls to collect (DS has had to go to A&E twice, DD1 has had to be collected due to sickness), and for all the assemblies, parents evening (with slots up to 5pm), school closed for 4 days in January due to burst pipes. The list goes on....

I really would try somehow to make friends with 1 or 2 other working parents at the school with similar aged kids. Then between you, you can cover insets days, polling days, strikes, school closure for spider cleaning and some of the school holidays. If it works adequately, this will help cover those days when there are no holiday clubs, meaning you can save annual leave for school holidays. If it works well, you may even be able to save some additional annual leave for school plays, parents evenings, taking children to sports events, SENCO meetings, parents-in-the-classroom morning etc. etc. .

Despite the government considering school to be childcare and pushing lone parents onto jobseekers when their youngest hits five, school itself does not agree and at times appears to go out of its way to prove it is not childcare. Make a plan now.

I don't think the OP's saying she doesn't have a long term plan is she? Presumably her parents can handle the odd emergency or the all day care they are doing now during some of the holidays and the rest her and her DP will be able to plan their annual leave in advance, because they will know the term dates.

All she's saying here is their AL is already booked because they didn't know about it and that it's unfair on her parents to have to do an extra school run for an unspecified period of at least 6/7+ weeks.

One other tip: if the school publishes a diary and term newsletters with diary dates on the website search for the ones from last year or even the ones from this school year.

It will give you an indication of the extra activities the school has and while the school may realise not every parent can come, your child will be disappointed if none of you can make it. We told DD from the start that it may be difficult but so far 90% of the times we were able to go. We are lucky our school publishes all dates at least at the beginning of term so I can tell the office.

Yes, but there will always be unexpected things cropping up. If OP's parents have other school-aged children, and are reluctant to do the early pickup a few days a week for half a term and have lives of their own (holidays, other things) then a plan needs to be made for all the other unexpected things that will undoubtedly crop up. School is unreliable for childcare, children are unreliable for getting to school (bugs go round and round, particularly in the first term of reception, and invariably on a really inconvenient day work-wise!). It was a total shock for me after the simplicity (and comparatively cost-effectiveness) of nursery and I ended up stopping work for a few years before being forced back. It only works now logistically and financially because I share "childcare" with other working parents.

I think the point is generally about how much time / annual leave you need.

Its obviously come as a shock to the OP how much leave you need for school aged children for the reception year, I think people are just saying you need to be prepared because it doesn't really get any better as they move up the school. I've had children in school for 4.5 years and it still surprises me, when I book the planned events / inset days at the start of my annual leave year, and then look back to have many days holiday I actually used in the last annual leave year for non-planned stuff, there is quite a significant difference.

I agree with mandy, I now survived 3 years of Infant school and for this calendar year I have 1.5 days annual leave unplanned. And this only because I work extra days every couple of months and take them in lieu.

After nursery, where we had 2 events a year and only took our family holiday plus a couple of days here and there, it was a shock to the system.

If DH wouldn't work from home and DD hardly gets sick we wouldn't be able to come to so many planned events.

Firstly - don't panic and give up your job because of a difficult three-month patch between July and October!!

I would:

1. Ring the school and explain that you can't make the parents information session because of work, and could you collect a copy of any info you need from the office on another occasion.

1. See if your DP might be able to take some time off, or you take some unpaid leave in order to get her to 1 or 2 of the settling in sessions. If you can't it's not the end of the world.

1. Research other childminders / advertise for someone to do school pick-ups three times a week at lunchtime between Sept and Oct half term. At least you have time on your side to sort this one. The school may be able to help you put out an advert in the school newsletter.

1. Worst case scenario if no luck above - see if your employer will let you take a sabbatical / period of unpaid leave in Sept & Oct in order to settle your DD into school.

Summer holidays will be no different to now as my parents have the dc whilst I'm at work so I'm not worried about that.

I've managed to get the parents morning off work but on each of the settling in sessions there's already two people booked off so even taking additional leave I just cannot do it. The school have only given three weeks notice which isn't enough. I've sent a message to everyone at work to see if they can do any swaps.

Beasty dd's school don't do a breakfast or after school club but I might enquirer about the half days at the pre school attached although it looks like it'll be easier for her to go full time from the off. I'm going to email them now.

It's our own fault for getting married this year. We completely didn't think

I've swapped two Friday shifts so can so two settling in days too. I think it'll all work out and I was panicking a bit

Spotty, have you phoned and asked about starting full time? What have they said?
This thread has been running several days now, with people saying the easiest solution is to ask for full time from the start, but to do it asap. Have you asked?
It is half term next week and it would be good for you to have an answer about this before the school closes for the week, so you know if you need to look at other options. If you don't ask until late in the week, there is little chance of an answer about it.

I will add, that with school age children, lots of planning ahead, keeping diaries etc is important. Always ask the school for the inset days for the whole of the following year and get term dates too. You can be planning for how to cover the whole of the following year then. If things go a bit wrong,not here are then only little things to deal with rather than big ones.

Thanks chocolate. I've emailed them and, having emailed before, know they're good at getting back to people, if I haven't heard by Thursday lunch time I will phone them. Good idea about asking for the years inset days. Would be most convenient if they were the same as my little sisters!

That's great that you've asked.
If you dont hear by the end of Weds, I would email again on Weds and also ring and leave a message on their answer machines requesting an answer to your emails. Say you would appreciate an answer by half term. Emphasise that this issue is really worrying you and you need confirmation that a full time start will be possible, otherwise you will spend the whole of half term worrying about it.
Hope you get the answer you want and are able to start planning for other events arising next term.

Thanks, I forgot about half term tbh it seems to have come round so quickly!