Any working mum's having trouble fitting school induction sessions around work

[LucyJones]

or vice versa
so we have had one look around the school with ds
one evening is planned (unfortunately on the night I work late)
and then 2 separate days where dcs go in on their own for an hour

that's before I even get to Sept when he does 2 hours in the morning for 3 weeks and then 3 hours in the morning for 3 weeks

I can see mine and dh's annual leave all going on this before we even get to school holidays!

yes it is tricky.

Can you not take a late lunch on the taster days? Or work later that day or something?

For the staggered start of term we continued with DS2's lovely childminder - fetched him at lunchtime and took him to her.

Mind you we just had a week of half days. Six weeks of no more than 3hrs sounds like an excessively cautious start, and yes, a total nightmare for anyone who works.

Do you have any other childcare? What do you do atm?

Yes. Thankfully it's behind me now but had to do this three times. For 6 weeks with DS#1 and DD and eleven weeks with DS#2.

First time I had to take lots of leave
Second and third time I was able to work from home and only go into the office when they were in school. Do you have a CM? Can she help you out? MIne was great generally but couldn't do that.

Fortunately we have only one hour this term. Reception go in full-time from the start but two weeks after the rest of the school. I have arranged with a friend in the same situation that we will look after each others' DC on our non-working days (we are both part-time) plus a bit of juggling with working from home/using grandparents etc.

I don't think some schools give any thought to the parents' situations.

Yes, it's a pain in the arse. We had to do this when DD started school. I'm the one with the flexible hours so I did the half-days. Thankfully when DS started this year they had moved to new school which just throws them in at the deep end.

The old school was far too hung up on the idea that all parents had nothing better to do than take their kids to school and collect them. They sometimes even gave out important information verbally at the door at the end of the day. Great for those of us whose children were in after-school club.

We had this when DS started. Thankfully for us, DH had just started working from home so we managed that way. I'm a teacher so there's no way I could take time off. The childminder in the village didn't have any spaces either, so at one point we actually thought about DS having to go to school in the next village where there was a childminder!

We had the first two weeks of two afternoons a week, then all afternoons until Christmas!

These cautious starts can really backfire. At our school last year, children who had been used to full-time nursery suddenly found themselves going to the school breakfast club from 7:45; then school from 9 till 12; then the local playgroup till 2:45, as the after-school club wasn't open those hours; then the after-school club until home time!