Private school holidays - what do your children do with all that time

[Luna9]

DD is starting at an independent school in September, year 7. I only work part time but planning on increasing hours a bit; what do you do during the school holidays? What do your children do? We do have quite a few holidays overseas but no way I can cover 18 weeks holidays. Youngest one will still be in the state sector in primary for 4 more years.

Library books (avid reader often up past midnight reading), 6 different music courses this year (if you're careful most are relatively cheap & full boarding, just avoid any with the word national in the title), & this year I am determined to get her to be productive in the other weeks setting her jobs for cash etc. The disappointing thing for us is that so many of her school friends are away for pretty much the whole holiday!

As others have said there is a lot of 'down time' - i.e. extreme slobbing / sleeping . As mine are older this doesn't require my supervision but when they were younger it meant weeks with DGPs and staggered days off by DH and me.

Now they're older we will have:

• 2 and a half week family holiday
• Various holiday courses. All 3 of the DC can choose up to 2 courses (rowing, sailing, academic, cricket etc).
• work experience for 2 weeks (DS1 aged 16)
• mini breaks with DH and DGPs (not all DC at the same time). Includes my climbing Ben Nevis and riding in Wales.

DS2 is getting an electric guitar as a 'good effort' for Common Entrance reward so I suspect he'll be strumming away for most of July. Thankfully (for our neighbours) it attaches to headphones.

All 3 will be dog walking as well to save me paying our dog walker.

So all in all they'll have a good summer.

AthenaAshton
"Watch crap on YouTube. Play crap on X Box. Post crap on Snapchat and Instagram. Get bored. Argue with one another. Try to argue with me. Fall out with friends online. Make a mess everywhere. The holidays feel very, very long."

Nailed it. So nailed it.

Athena , yep. Snap ❤️

If you have a spare room consider a summer au pair for 6 weeks during the really long holiday.

Working full time here and it's a struggle. All their friends leave for most the summer - grandparents, second homes, hols - and the one at secondary won't do clubs without a friend. It's a nightmare.

Every year we wing it one way or another - literally planning forensically with the calendar ahead of time.

I wish I could get summers off.

Yes I’ve always wondered why they have so much vacation. 2 week half terms in the Autumn, not long after they’ve had a nine week summer! My youngest also has a medical condition, and has averaged 25 weeks out of school over the past few years in prep. With no grandparents alive or any other family support, my old full time career is a long way off. Our prep does run fantastic holiday sports clubs, but unfortunately our daughter isn’t remotely sporty and gets tired very easily, so doesn’t cope with anything like that. But I know lots of parents use them and think they are great. You’ll probably find your prep does similar.

I'm a teacher with the same holidays as my kids which is a childcare blessing but that said, 9 weeks day in day out with your own kids... We go away the first two weeks whilst state schools are still going, they do a week of camp each (they're 4 and 8), we have a couple of long weekends away then it's play dates, day trips