If you work and your kids are at school .. what do you do during the holidays?

[Twiglett]

how do you work out childcare? what kind is it? how much is it?

I went casual during the holidays so was able to just work on Saturdays.

Childcare was in the form of a childminder but it cost £7 an hour for 2 kids and was just not worth it, hence the casual bit!

DS1 could have gone to holiday club at school though.

Wasnt there a similar q the other day . atm I split between taking time off , or dh the odd day, and sending htem to a school based playscheme , costs about £45 a day for 2.

Work flexible hours, and shuffle with DH's shifts.

Grandad helps with a couple of hours here and there.

I work 25 hrs pw, rather than full-time, which makes a difference with the flexible hours.

Atm ds (10yo)

Summer holidays (6 weeks):
about 2 weeks where I'm off £0
about a week with my mum £0
3 weeks with ex mil £0

dd (4y0) is still at ft nursery so we carry on with that = £700 a month

Feb and Oct half term I book off usually

Xmas we cobble together with odd days off

easter ds goes to ex mils and dd at nursery

2009 is going to be harder because dd won't be at nursery any more so we will have to use ex mil for her too (she won't mind but dd might)

School has a playscheme thing, think it's £25 a day ish, I could use that I suppose but tend not to as ds is already in breakfast club/afterschool club in term time.

It used to be a nightmare. There are holiday clubs available. These are run by sports clubs etc. Many independent schools now run them too, via their commercial departments. They are open to all children, you don't have to have connections to the school. Places are normally limited and you can expect to pay between £25 and £30 per day for them.

Other than that, the best thing is to make friends with other mums in the playground. If you work part-time, you can probably work something out with another mum to share some of it, but this is unreliable and not legal if money changes hands.

dh changed his career and is now a teacher so, fortunately, we don't have this problem anymore.

We use a holiday club at a local leisure centre, ds is a member of the centres club which makes it about £68 pw (I pay £40pw for breakfast & after school club when ds is a school so is only another £18 on top) they are ofsted registered and ds has a great ime there.
They charge £16per day and we also used one that charged £14pd in a different area

There was a thread on this a couple of days ago.

if we are using formal childcare, we put the 7 and 6year old in school-based holiday club, 11 pounds a day. And the 3 year old goes to the local childminder (who we don't use regularly but she's flexible) for about £24 a day. When she's 4 she can join the others in the school club.

So it's about 45 a day for all 3 but we pay it through workplace salary sacrifice tax free scheme so it's maybe about £30 a day paid that way.

we do a lot of shuffling hours of work in the holidays too but DP and I both have flexible jobs and we share childcare with friends and my sister too.

I work from home so it's slightly easier - I could take on less work but of course then I don't get paid, so I tend to still work during holidays.

It means I work more in the evenings and perhaps on weekends.
Dh may take pockets of time off if I'm struggling.
If really pushed and dh can't take time off then my mum will come and help for a few days.

It makes life more difficult for me in some ways, but then I guess I'm not paying for any childcare and I can still take the boys out and about and do stuff with them during the holidays.

There have been a couple of threads on this lately.

We hire a holiday nanny (she's a student doing a teaching degree rather than a qualified nanny, but that suits us better since our children are school age). Costs about £300 per week including tax/NI but food, petrol money, entrance fees etc on top (at least £50 a week). We also use our annual leave and send children to granny's for half terms and some of the main hols (keeps nanny cost down)

Have looked into local playschemes but they seem to work out at least £250 per week for 2 kids and I think dd is a bit young for it yet.

If you use a childminder during termtime then you will have someone who can cover holiday care - we use school clubs during termtime.

we have a nanny all year round (because we need cover for days they are sick too and inset days and someone to take them to clubs, do play dates etc. etc.)

I work part time, smaller two are in nursery/wraparound pre-school care so are sorted (but pre-schooler has no free sessions in holidays so I have to pay for her).

Eldest - I can't afford for her to go to the school holiday club, so I chat up mums of her friends and ask if she can play at theirs for the morning/afternoon that I am working, then offer to have their child for a morning/afternoon to pay it back!

It's a bloody nightmare. I am paying to go to work in the holidays hence why I am finishing before the summer holidays.

DP and I take hols in relays, save up a few days TOIL each whenever we can, and on the days we are at home with DS, have other children for the day, whose parents then have DS for whole days in return....up to 5 days.

In summer 2009 DS will spend at least one week in a holiday scheme doing arts and crafts which he will love.

As others we cobble together a variety of options, childminder, granny, SIL, friends, holidays etc. They used to go to my parents for a week too, but this year it isn't possible.

Last summer it was fab, DH took the whole summer off!! At Christmas he was away doing panto, but I was able to take between christmas and NY and granny was able to do a couple of days and CM a day. Half term they will do 3 days at CM and 2 with granny, then teh extra non-pupil day will be a playdate!!

Easter I have no idea, but I am guessing CM 2 - 3 days and granny and SIL a day or two each

Message withdrawn

I should say that the nanny ended up being quite an expensive option but the only one that worked - childminders and school clubs/play schemes didn't stay open late enough, we have no family that can help us out at all and although our friends always help in an emergency, we just couldn't make it work on a permanent basis iyswim.

We also are doing the fulltime nanny route.

It is extremely low stress and extremely expensive!

Reading with interest. Come sept I will have to have this sorted.

Am I being a bit dim here ? Why is there such a discrepancy between prices for clubs. Some saying £40, some saying £11. What is the difference please - and how do I find an £11 one !!

I guess the club prices depend on where you are - I'm Southeast. Also on who runs the club and what hours are covered.ie. school club run by the people who generally do the termtime after school club is cheaper than the one run by one of the 'chains' eg. Barracudas. We used to use a reasonable-priced one run by the YMCA and I can now get a discount via my work for some of the Barracuda sites (but they are all pretty inconvenient for me).
Some clubs cover 9am-3pm, some will cover longer hours but you have to pay more, some include lunch, some you have to pay for lunch, and with some you need to send a packed lunch/snacks.
I think you may be able to get info on holiday clubs from the childcarelink.gov website (but I haven't looked for a long time).
Oh, and sometimes you get an early booking discount so worth planning in advance.

We use a combination of a play scheme, annual leave, weekend shifts and going to visit Grandma.

Our £11 a day one is in a local state primary school, children take their own sandwiches but it includes snacks, activities, daily swimming (the school has a pool) and the occasional outing.

The main alternative is a posh one at the local independent school at £30 a day where they do archery etc.

I don't think our £11 one is unusually cheap, they used to cost about that in our old area too, we're in the South West now but used to be in the North West. but it's run by the after school club people so it's not for profit, just trying to break even. With 3 children I prefer the £11 one, but I suspect the £30 would be more exciting.

I have thought about a holiday nanny, with 3 children it should be cheaper than 3 in childcare but actually seems not to be. also mine all quite like going to activities and clubs.

Like Somersetmum DH retrained as a teacher to avoid this problem. Trouble is he's not great at entertaining them he doesn't want to meet up with the other mums in the park or have all the kids friends round.
Suspect the kids would much rather go to kids club!!!

I'm lucky because I only work 22 hrs a week term-times except for summer hols (8 wks) where sister and I do a swap. I take her ds for two weeks and she takes my dd for 1 week (she's too young for a fortnight yet!) The rest I juggle with shared baby-sitter and dh.

Haven't tried the holiday clubs yet, but when I get to that stage, one of the tips from my friends is to send dc with one or two of their friends. That way, they settle better and it's not too unfamiliar.

Some childminders (like me!) offer ad hoc holiday care - I am happy to have children for a few hours/days/weeks ... and we don't sit around watching TV all day - we go for days out, to the park and woods, and do art'n'craft activities etc.