Before-school childcare, 7-9am?

[gourd]

How/where do you find before-school childcare?
DD (4 yrs) starts school in Sept 2015. After school club fine, but it’s not Ofsted registered so each child is only allowed 2 hours in total a day (i.e. DD cant use before school as well and the before school club is not open till an hour after we'd need care to start anyway). We need childcare 7-9am (2 hours, 4 days a week as I don't work Fridays) with drop-off at school. There is only one registered childminder in area who drops at the local school, who I’ve never met and couldn't contact in the summer when I tried to find replacement care as our wonderful CM ceased child-minding. DD went to daycare nursery rather than local school nursery in Sept 2014 due to CM stopping and no replacement CM in area.

Do private nurseries usually do a breakfast & school-drop service? Our daycare nursery does, but only to a school near the nursery (which is over 2 miles away from our home & our local school). The two daycare nurseries near our house/school did not have place & neither were open long enough hours so never explored whether or not they do school-drop-offs for Seopt 2015. We couldn’t afford a full-time nanny/babysitter as they are double the price of day-care nursery which we already struggle with but my main concern was that the ones I saw on-line didn’t seem to have many qualifications or much experience. They were mostly young, often teenage students wanting part time work to fund studying for childcare qualifications. Probably less of an issue if only wanting 2 hours a day before-school, but do any nannies actually do 2-hours a day, mornings only? Would this be an option and how much roughly does it cost for 2 hours a day and a 4-day-week? We use childcare vouchers but I dont think nannies take them, and the after-school club also doesn't either, so it is going to be expensive despite DD starting school.

I couldn’t actually find any nannies in our area on-line, so they would have to travel to us. I haven’t been able to contact the only other local CM on the number the council gave me and there isn’t another one registered in the area at the moment. I have tried a few internet sites including a local one our old CM recommended, plus the local council list of CMs and nurseries, but no luck so far. Where should I be looking?

Your local Family Information Service should have the most up to date list of childcare providers in your area.

Even so, it would be of huge benefit for your dd to have shorter days by you and your DH looking at rejuigging your working hours to enable her to have shorter days.

Even by October half term most reception aged children are exhausted. It's a huge step for them to start full time education. The demands might not be all physical but there are lots of expectations of them which is emotionally tiring too. The thought of sitting down for a nice family dinner after her being out of the house for 10 hours a day is frankly likely to result in lots of tears (hers and yours).

Time well spent with her now is surely worth more than your pension.

I'm surprised this is only just dawning on you. yes, you have until September, but most people consider work/school/ childcare issues, like YEARS before they even register a child down to attend a school.
what have you been considering for the last few years re your work and school?
you live in a very remote area, with almost no childminders?
we are small town and there are 2 before school clubs, tonnes if childminders, and tonnes of mums to help out, where I live. not that I need hardly anything.

this surely hasn't come as much of a shock to you. or shouldn't have.

holding out, hoping one childminder registers on your site, seems a very inappropriate and unrealistic solution. what exactly are you going to do?

What are you intending to do in the school holidays?

I would send an open letter in addressed to the teaching assistants/ we did this out of desperation and now have a lovely TA looking after our girls after school- worth a shot.

I sympathise. I realise that some families have little flexibility about when they work or what time they begin.
However 7am is going to be too early for most child minders and nurseries (nurseries are usually not usually available just for before or after school care) and nannies will usually want more hours.
Childminders will be your best bet. Get on the council website and look for registered ones in your area. You will have to pay a premium for starting at 7.
If you can't find one quickly, then I think you will need to re-think your work. Perhaps it is time to apply for a new job which starts a bit later. You have time to do that. And yes, have you thought about the holidays. There are schemes and holiday clubs, but they don't tend to start at 7am - 8 is pretty much the earliest. Good luck and at least you are addressing this now.....there is time to find a solution, but it might be a change in work, not just childcare.

Do not underestimate how tired a reception child will be. Listen to what others are saying.

My dd is in Reception. She goes to Breakfast and After School Club on Mondays and Tuesdays, 8am til 5 pm. Tonight, she was literally crying with tiredness. She is exhausted.
I'm so glad to be off tomorrow. It means we can get up at 8, have some porridge together and I can walk her in at 8.40 when it will be light and the frost will have lifted. It makes all the difference.

Op. Have you considered a change in hours? Could you work over 5 days which might give your dd some shorter days?

Oblomov, it sounds like OP's previous CM did do these hours, but she then stopped being a CM.

I noted that Yonic. Op's cm stopped.
but op lives in a place with only ONE registered childminder. ONE.
that really is remote, or unusual, surely.
so this is the price op pays for living where she does.

There are lots more than one CM where I live, but few with places and I'd've thought almost none who start at 7am - remoteness isn't the only issue!

Contact the council. They will have a list of childminders etc.

Contact the school. They may have details of childminders and nurseries that collect from school. Is there a Facebook group for the school? If so ask parents for recommendations.

Do a search on the ofsted website for registered childcare in your area.

It's the 7am start that is going to be an issue. Do look at working your hours over five days or reducing your lunch break. I've had to do a bit of jiggling with hours and whilst it's a pain not getting a proper break it means I can leave a bit earlier.

And definitely start considering holiday care now.

Oh, and find out if the school does a staggered start to reception so you can save enough leave to cover this.

I didn't find reception made dc tired, but we seem to be the exception.

I think you need to speak to your employer about adjusting your working hours. At my firm we call this a lifestyle change and every person is entitled to apply and be considered for a change to their contract. Could you drop a few hours per week and start later? What kind of work do you do?

A 7am start for a reception child will be exhausting. Not to mention the after school care on top.

I know this will make me sound soft but it really upsets me when I hear of children being dropped off 2 hours before their school day even starts. Of course some people have no choice, but think: is this the best way for your child to start a day of learning? Tired from an early wake and 2 hours of a pre-school setting?

A women in my village was recently looking for childcare from 6am - that would mean kids getting up at 5am! I actually nearly cried when I heard that, silly softie that I am.

Also, whilst I might not assume the before school club would start at 7, it would never occur to me ahead of actually applying to a school that I might not be able to use both the BSC and the ASC!

your child might be really tired with these arrangement or might not. Mine had to go to nursery from 7 till 6 since age 6m. When he started school he did the same hours but with a CM going the wrap around. I never saw the tiredness that everyone had warned me about. In any case, if you don't find a CM, I would speak to your employer and ask to work Fridays but have shorter hours the other days

You also need to keep in mind most Reception kids don't start on the first day of term full time - it can take up until half term before they are doing a full school day.

Have you thought of an au pair rather than a nanny or childminder? If you have room in your house it's a much cheaper way of dealing with childcare.

Mine both do BC and ASC some days and it's fine, but that's normally a 8-9 hour day some where between 7.45am and 6pm. They would not cope with the full 10+ hours despite being incredibly active and resilient. It's tougher than a nursery day. No where near us opens before 7.30am and most are 8am

I also had a case of 10 hours nursery with no problem and a Reception child with lots of tiredness, meltdowns and crisis.

After 1 year, I should have done it earlier, I reduced my daily hours. And DH also changed his work pattern. It made a huge difference.

The reasons I don’t want to have to wait till almost 9am to drop her myself then not get home till 7pm from work are that a) there won’t be any family mealtimes/time together at all Mon-Thur if we had that arrangement. B) I wont see her after school till her bedtime so cant help her with work/reading etc or ask her how she is doing and C) DH can’t "flex his hours" at all, he works 8-4 as they’re his contracted hours so he has to leave house at 7 to get to work for 8 and gets home about 5:15 having left at 4. I could request to work 10-6 but this means setting off at 8:30 really as it will take more than an hour to get in to work at that time of day. This means that we’d STILL need a tiny bit of childcare in the mornings, but the breakfast club wont take her if she is using the after school club for 2 hours (which she would still have to do as DH wont get back till after 5pm). I cant work later than 6 as the flexi contract stops at 6pm and the office and building is actually locked by the porters at 6pm. Me getting home might be quicker so I wold be home by 7 having left at 6pm but that’s DD’s bedtime. We will probably still all be up at 6 the next day as DH wouldn't have to get up then anyway, so this means we couldn't realistically put back DDs bedtime any later. We live in a small bungalow so I wouldn’t be cooking/eating at home evenings if not getting home till DDs bedtime plus I suspect \I;d still need to go to bed myself about 9:30 anyway if still getting up at 6. I’d have to eat my tea at my desk in the week. Personally I think this is a much worse proposition than us all being together as a family for a few hours each evenings and seeing DD after school before bedtime every night.

I know many people cannot do this but this is very important to me and I think to our DDs wellbeing hence the need for wrap around care before school start and until we return from work.

I have looked at jobs nearer to home. They are poorly paid and even with a term time only job (i.e. no holiday care cost) we'd still need some childcare in terms time, as jobs locally start at 9 without any flexi time so DD would have to use breakfast club and I wouldn’t finish till 5 so she’d still need after school care. I don't understand the comment about pensions. Mine is a good offer as the employer tops it up (think it is still 17%!!) and it has elements of final salary & contributions based. It is A Good Deal by most standards. I have no savings. I have nothing in the bank after bills etc each month. My husband doesn’t have any savings either and is 20 years older than me so the reality is that I will be on my own by the time I am 50-60, barring miracles. He has worked at same institution for 25 years. I have been in my work place for 8 years so have 8 years pension. They are both very secure jobs and in comparison with private companies or local school/council jobs, better paid, as well as having better working conditions/family leave allowances etc. I can’t not work or reduce my hours any further than I already have for financial reasons. I pay voluntary pension contributions to top up my part time salary as the difference is about 7 years from full time equivalent, so it is worth topping up. I only work 28 hours a week (Mon-Thur) but the commute is 8-12 hours a week on top of working hours. We don't get paid for lunch break but legally have to take one, otherwise I’d work though and be able to come home earlier - but the rules of our flexi are between 8am and 6pm only so I cant leave the office before 4 anyway.

Local jobs are at least £5k less pro rata, but often are also term-time only so it’s quite lot less in reality, although we'd save holiday childcare (around 3 months a year?) . We would still need before-school care though, even if working 9-5 in hometown for less money -the main issue seems to be that the school do not provide more than 2 hours a day and even if I was working close to home we would still need 3 hours!

DragonRojo - Yes I will ask about that. I might not get it due to assistant hours (part time cover arrangement already in place) but it could work out really well for us if I can get 10-3:40ish every day... She'd still need to use the after school club for a short time till 4:30-5pm, but not the before school.

I agree with DragonRoJo, working 5 days a week will be loads easier for you all. I've always worked full time, but before DC started school I did 4 looong days and they were fine at nursery. Once they started school I spread my hours over 5 days and it is a lot easier. I know you'll be making the commute more often but I think overall it is worth it.

Good luck - it is a tricky change but you will all settle into some sort of workable pattern.

We aren’t remote but there are no houses on two sides of ours, just fields, so we don’t have a "radius" if you see what i mean. We are less than 2 miles from the town border as well which means a different Local Authority is very close. This means website searches tend to bring up CMs who will never go to our local school as they do the other town.
There is one other CM in the next street to us but bizarrely doesn’t go to our school as her own kids go to another one further away in the town centre, so she only drops there! The only other (3rd CM) that I knew of is the one I’ve had trouble contacting, but on childcare.co.uk I have found 2 more who were not on the council list last year (new) and who MAY be nearby enough to be able to do it – if they have a place, although the website search is very broad. I hate not having a choice though. I want to know I’ve found the right person really. Though guess 4 hours a day isn’t quite the same as the full time CM. DD says she wants to go to “owl club” after school, as she knows many other kids there (from the old CMs) and wants to do the music, craft and dance classes etc. However you may be right that she’ll be too tired to enjoy that sort of thing.

I'll get a folder if I do 5 days. Winter is difficult to cycle (or drive) anywhere near work due to traffic congestion and bad weather/poor visibility in rush hours traffic so have been getting tram but it’s expensive (£6.10 a day not including getting to/from tram station on bus makes it a tenner). You can take a folder on tram though so I can probably risk rain/ice/not being able to see for 2 miles to town for the tram then the mile from tram to work each day. I'm really thinking about this. I'll ask about it at work next week.

Op you seem to be completely missing the point, there will be no nice family mealtimes. Your dd will be very tired and most likely emotional. Am confused as to why as small bungalow means you can't cook after 7pm?

OP, whatever your current arrangement, you and DH are entitled to make flexible working requests. These may be declined but they are allowed.

Can you move closer to where you and DH work?

Seems like a lot of hassle for 28 hours a week
Can you not work your hours over 5 days? If you take her to school first and then go to work, dh could then pick her up from the after school club