Teachers - What are your childcare arrangements?

[NotQuiteThere]

To set the scene - currently doing my NQT in a school which is about 35 minutes away in the car. DH works about 1 hr commute away. My contract is fixed term, which is fine. I'll probably look at a school closer to home for next September. I do enjoy teaching at this school, and will be sad to leave.

Dc's school breakfast club doesn't open until 30 minutes after we leave for work, and no childminders doing drop-offs nearby. We had a nanny who has been unable to cope with the wraparound hours, so are currently on the hunt for another nanny. Because no one wants to do mornings only, we've offered additional hours, both wraparound and some whole days with housekeeping. Basically, trying to accommodate what a nanny might need in order to keep her. We are offering towards the upper end of the going rate for nannies.

It is all getting very expensive! To the point where I am asking myself what on earth am I doing, and wouldn't it be better just to stay home and do the school runs and housekeeping myself? Dh doesn't mind, but apart from maternity leave, I have always been in work or studying, and it's really important to me to maintain financial independence.

I wondered how other teachers managed it? I will definitely be looking to work closer to home after my contract ends, just struggling to see to July at the moment!

DS's breakfast club opens at 8. My school is close enough, and in the direction of his school that I can drop him off and be in school for 8:30 (which is the latest we can arrive). Sometimes if there's traffic it can be cutting it fine.

Breakfast club opens at 7.30am here.

Dh does the school run anyway.

The key for us is that I'm 10 minutes from my school and dh is 15 minutes from his work.

My dds current school offers wrap around from 7.30-6, one of the reasons we chose it. Her old school had no childcare so we used a childminder but it did take a while to find one that was happy to start early.

Fingers crossed you find a nanny soon.

When my children were little, I had an au pair.

I'm very surprised there are no childminders near her school. My travel is the same as yours. My DD goes to childminder before school then after school club afterwards and I pick up at 5.30. X

I had a childminder when the dcs were younger. She started work at 8 and I would drop them off then and arrive at work at 8.20. Then she'd pick them up and would have them til 5.

On staff meeting nights or parents' evening nights, DH would pick them up. Otherwise I'd make sure I was able to leave by 4.45 to collect them as I worked a 10-15 min drive away from home.

Now they walk themselves to school and I leave at 7.45 to arrive at 8. I get plenty done before morning break duty/briefing meeting at 8.30 so I don't have to stay as late after work.

We have this problem. Nurseries (for my youngest) and before school club (for my eldest) don't open until 8am, and I start teaching at 8.30 so obviously need to be there a little earlier than that to get prepped for the day. Like you, we manage at the moment by having a nanny, but from next summer we'll probably switch to an au pair, who can do the nursery/school run and a little bit of housework.

I use a cm. She's pretty flexible and will have dd2 from 7:30am til 5:30pm if I need it. Most days it's wraparound from 8til 5.

Dd1 walks herself to secondary, and leaves at the same time as us.

If the school is a long term commitment for you (i.e. you will be offered and take a permanent contract) could you move your DC to it?

Year before last I dropped DS at a child minder at 7.30, she then took him to pre-school, picked him up from pre-school and I picked him up from her at 6. I still couldn't really fit my job in between 8.15am and 5.15pm, it was too much for all of us- I dropped my SLT role and went back PT.

Now I have DS in a prep which starts at 8am and finishes at 4pm for all children and had daily clubs until 6pm. Even if I had 2 in the school it would cost less than a nanny. I work PT 9am - 2pm x3 and 9am - 4.30pm x2, it is a senior role but in a 'hard to recruit' niche so I was able to negotiate these hours at interview.

I luckily has parents on hand to help but for one term of my second NQT placement, I had far to travel so an early start. A good friend with DC at same school had my DC every morning for me and I'd pay for breakfast for them all for a week. She wouldn't accept cash at all so I'd fill a bag with breads, cereal, milk and fruit for all (hers and mine) DC. Any likeminded Mums to do the same?

Cracked screen on phone - bad spelling!

I think if I were offered a PT role after this year, I would consider it carefully. I think they would be keen to, but it all depends on headcount at the end of the year (and tbh, I think there won't be space available). I could move dcs to this school if it becomes a long term thing, but they would have to leave the house at 7.15 with me, and they are still very young - the youngest likes his lie-ins!

It seems like such a first world problem, but it really highlights for me the difficulties of working parents, to find affordable and flexible childcare in order to work! Realistically, I will probably look for something closer to home - breakfast club starts at 7.45, which is manageable with a shorter commute. I am amassing a tonne of notes and resources this year, so hopefully there will be less planning and prep to do next year, and I can leave work earlier. After-school club is definitely feasible for us even now, I am using it to try and help our nanny cope with her hours.

There are neighbours with children at the school, so I will probably go to them as a last resort. Problem is the number of dcs I have (and they too!), so I would probably end up dropping dcs with an assortment of neighbours - not that I think they would mind, but this is a short-term solution I think.

Hopefully it will all get easier next year!

I keep thinking it will get easier, but it doesn't! DD has just gone into Y7 and I am finding this the trickiest of all stages. She is not ready to let herself into an empty house. She wouldn't mind going to CM as CM's DD is a friend, but bus timings mean she would have to walk there alone. However, most Y7s would be horrified about going to a CM. Au pair would be ideal if we had room, but we don't. I think working close to home is the best all round if possible.

Dh is a teacher with a 30min commute, I work 45 mins away part time.

I drop our dc with a childminder at 7. 30, she does school/pre-school runs and dh picks them up at 5pm. I deliberately picked my days to fit around his late finishes but our cm will keep the kids later with prior arrangement.

There is no wraparound care at our primary and only 3 childminders in our village. It is such a pain for working parents.

As a teacher, you don't worry about your DCs' lie-ins. They have to fit in with your job, not the other way around.

I found life pretty easy once I moved my DDs to my school. They were in early morning club and late club, and the bonus was that they never had to do prep at home.

I think an au pair would work best in this scenario. She only needs to drop and pick up from school mainly, so I assume 7.45-8.45am, then 3-5pm daily. I would consider moving children into one bedroom if needed to make space for her ( if you have say an average 3 bed house)

This time next year you can review situation if you or Dh can move work closer to home, or maybe move house closer to work?

CM who collects from school, though that's not helpful for you if none do (though it's sounds odd as school children make up most of the clientele of the ones I see). Dh starts work half an hour later than me, so he drops off as soon as she opens her doors.

I had a couple of weeks of being between au pairs and had a good childminder who could accept early 7.30am drop offs.

I found it terribly expensive as she charged me for the whole day for 3 children. I didn't have much of a choice at the time as it was short notice. The rationale for all day was that she had parental responsibility from when I dropped off to when I picked them up at the end of the day. In reality, of the children needed picking up from school for illness, DH would have done it.

I appreciate that having my three for an hour before and after school meant that she could not have other children thoughout the day. I am just saying that a childminder can be an expensive option., and not sustainable if you have multiple children and a teacher's salary.

Clearly, with an au pair, you have them living with you, but their working hours are well suited to dropping off children at school, then picking them up at the end of the day.

I think you do whatever you need to get you by at the time. What you do one year may not be what you do the next.

I have moved to a prep school and taken ds with me! Means I get a discount on fees, he can have breakfast, lunch and tea there and has brilliant wrap around with his nursery staff that he knows and loves. Meant I went full time a year earlier than originally planned after having ds but already much less stressful in comparison to arrangements previously where I was waiting outside nursery at 7.30am to throw ds at his keyworker and break the speeding laws trying to get to work for 8am...!

When DS was young enough to need childcare, we had a loft room built and put an au pair up there. It worked really well for both us and the au pair. DS was in year 3 when we started (and only 1 child) so the au pair was on duty for about 1 1/2 hours in the morning and then max 3 hours after school, so well within the 25 hours a week they are allowed to work so quite a cushy au pair job compared to some. DS got to stay and play football at the park with his friends after school, or go on play dates like he did when I was around. And I got my evening meal cooked by the au pair ready for when I got in. Win-win!!

Thanks for all of your replies .

Demographic at my dc's school seems to be mostly made up of nannies and mums doing the drop-offs, hence no childminders that I've found so far. The youngest is just 4, so I'm loathe to get him out of the house earlier than I need him to - I feel as if his day is long enough! He is shattered by the end of the week.

We'll keep looking for our nanny, possibly consider an au pair too, although I'm guessing that we would then need to provide a car. I guess I'll start looking at new jobs from Jan/Feb onwards for a September start, then figure out where we go from there.

I'm glad it's not just me finding this whole childcare thing difficult - thanks for the reassurance.

I am extremely lucky to have a 0.8 over five days contract so I can collect my kids from school. My kids go to breakfast club at 7.30am and are dropped off by Dad.

I didn't find my childminder by word of mouth. Here, you rang the local county and they send you a list (or at least they used to) of the registered childminders in the area. I then worked my way down the list ringing some and doing some visits. I was lucky and found a lovely lady to have my children for me. She was our CM for 14 years and we've just stopped using her services this year.

I've always used a childminder. I had one near work when they were v young and changed to one near home once they were nursery age. I drop off all 3 at 7.15 - cm does school run and has toddler all day. Pick up 5.30. At the moment I am lucky that cm does one day and family do the other but it still costs around £250 power month which is about a quarter of what I earn. CMs I have used have all been excellent and become good friends of mine. They are very much part of the local community too.

I have the same problem. At the moment I stop DD to another parents house which is sort of on the way to school. I pay the other mum £20/week and I give her breakfast at home before we go. For now it works fine but it's always a struggle as DD has to be up so early and eating breakfast at that time seems like a chore for her.

After school she goes to an after school club until 6.

It really is a nightmare. Like you I sometimes wonder if it's worth the hassle, but I really do love teaching and love the school I'm in so I'd hate to have to give it up.