Do you work full time and have primary school kids? How!

[thatisawrap]

The school wrap around has a waiting list. please can you share your working patterns with me so I can work out what to add for in my flexible working request. I'm panicking!

We had a childminder, then afterschool club.

DH does drop off then starts at 9:30. Kids get picked up by childminder. I work 8:30-4:30 then pick them up from childminder and cook dinner (usually part of this is batch cooked). We WFH most of the time. I commute once a week and DH has to do drop off and pick up.

I have three children at primary and I work around them but I’d highly recommend a cleaner/housekeeper and someone to deal with the garden etc. Could you afford a nanny or nanny share?

There are some other parents in similar situations and we rotate a bit to help out with extra curricular activities.

We both have fairly flexible jobs so it’s rare that one of us can’t cover it necessary. It’s tricker when one of us is away for work. I’m not always sure how we manage as it feels like so many plates are spinning at once, especially since two of the children are neurodivergent.

I worked in a school so from 7.30 - 4/5ish every day but we were fortunate enough to have my parents living close by. Obviously holidays were great as I was off with DS. When we moved away I took a career break until he started high school. Wrap around care was so expensive that there would have been little point in me working.

I used breakfast club at school and an external after school club. They had dinner there.

I dont work school holidays but I know someone (civil service) who is part time but she worked full time term time so she could not work during the school holidays.

Have a look at other child based activities/business close to the school you may find they offer wrap around. We have an outdoor pursuits centre that does pick up at the local primary and then takes them back to their centre and there are several private nurseries who offer similar services to different primary schools, the city centre based trampoline park used to do it to their nearest school too.

We're lucky that DH and I both WFH, school is on our road and by the time Covid lockdowns had ended DD was old enough to entertain herself at home for an hour till DH finishes work at 4 pm, so I pick her up then go back to work, she gets a snack, does homework or watches telly then DH takes over till I finish work.

Partner and I alternative working from home. We don't use wraparound, on our wfh days we do the school run and the kids entertain themselves until we finishing working. Everyone else with kids on my team does the same so it's not a problem, I just take a shorter lunch or work later those days to make up for it. Kids are 5 and 7.

So two parents, one works hybrid 2/3 days in the office 9-5 can shift to 8-4. The other has a long commute and often works away.

We're screwed

Chose a school that had extensive wraparound with space. Then I got a major promotion and we now have an after school nanny/housekeeper who does 3.30-7pm 4 days a week. We both wfh on a Friday so use the afterschool club then. Morning club at 7.30am unless wfh which is 3 days a week in a good week, once a week in a week like this one.

I specifically had to choose schools based on being able to secure a before/after school childminder. I had deposits on childminders for the top 2 schools on the list.

I'm a single parent working full time - often have to leave to travel anywhere in the country pretty much by 730am and back for pick up at 6pm

Search for local childminders that service your children's school.

I drop my children at the childminder at 8am, she takes them to school along with the other children she minds who go to the school.

She then picks them and the other kids up from school and I collect them from hers at 17:30.

In the school holidays I drop them at hers at 8am, she looks after them and pick them up at 17:30.

My husband is out the house 6am till 6pm. I go straight to work after dropping them off and collect them straight after finishing.

How can wrap around have a waiting list, what’s the point of having one if not enough capacity? Sorry, this is a genuine question, I am not familiar with the school system here but this is genuinely baffling.

Work from home. Very flexible employer.

Otherwise it would be a childminder

Oh, and the cost for the year round care including the wrap around term time care and the full time school holidays for 2 children is just under 12K.

I use the government tax free childcare scheme, so 20% off the price above, however, the way the scheme is set in renewal 'blocks', I always go over the limit for the 20% in the July, August and September months as the cost of childcare is greater than the tax free scheme allow.
Would be so much better if it was an annual allowance!

This is similar to us. DH and I both work 4 days a week (with a different day off) but those 4 days are long hours out of the house for both of us. No ability to WFH. 2 days are covered but the 3 days we are both working are very difficult.

Our eldest is starting primary in September. We specifically chose a school with extensive wrap around provisions even though it isn’t our closest. We are sending youngest to CM for 3 days. There is such demand here our CM couldn’t have eldest after school but can probably cover most school holidays for him as she has a 2 yo who is term time only.

We will inevitably need to use unpaid parental leave and I can’t see DH or I having time off together until both kids are in secondary. Holidays won’t be happening. It sucks a bit and I wish we didn’t both work in a hospital but I think it’s pretty standard for 2 working parents in low to middle income jobs.

I'm in the same position - my daughter's starting school in September. We're either going to keep her at the childminder's from 3-5, or I'm going to see if I can reduce my hours and work 4 days over 5 to finish early. I really really want to be able to pick her up every day but need to weigh it up financially with loss of earnings / no more childcare costs.

Basically a lot of planning a few years before DD started school.

We chose a school that had breakfast and after school club, so we have 7:30-5:30 covered.

We also changed jobs a few years before school to make sure we were within 5 miles of school/home/work. And both had flexible working requests to fully compress into 4 days each sorted a year before school started (so in school hols we only have 3 days a week that needs sorting)

And we have family/grandparents to help with a couple of pick ups, again we mived close to them about 2 years before start of school and picked a school very close to them to make it easy.

I can’t speak country wide, but I know locally to us wrap around generally isn’t provided by the schools or the local authority. It’s private companies that go in to the school and offer the service. So it is dependent on their staffing and their risk assessments - don’t forget wrap around has kids from 3-11 years of age. 3-5 yo legally require lots of supervision.

I work 4 days tues-fri so mondays are sorted (most teacher training days on monday too)
before & after school club tuesday & preschooler in nursery
grandparent looks after preschooler one day a week with school pick up & drop off for older one.
other 3 days husband wfh and does school drop off & takes late “lunch break”
at school pick up time. Older Child plays with toys/watch tv/ amuse self with husband wfh upstairs until I get home from work and pick preschooler up.

I did drop of when DH was on shift, with help of flexi time (+/- 1.5 hour each day. So could do 9:30 - 5:30 instead of 8:00 - 4:00)

DH worked night shift 4x 6pm - 6am, so he could do the pic up. Plus the odd dropp off when not on shift.

Honestly, these years were hard but we managed. (He also did a lot of overtime, but that's another story).)

Pre-covid before working from home was a thing we were lucky in that our first choice school had available breakfast and after school care, also did some juggling of start times / end times so one could drop off and the other could pick up.

Thanks for the heads up on the cost!

I had a au pair for a few years before wfh was a thing. I’m a single mom though with a demanding job.

I do. It’s grandparents plus after school breakfast club. If there’s a waiting list for that maybe a different school or a childminder.
it’s really hard. It’s a major reason why we chose the primary school that we did, that it had good wrap around care.

We chose primary schools almost solely based on wrap around provision…