How do you juggle full time work and school holidays on your own?

[Twinkleto3s]

I’m looking for a bit of advice from other single parents who work full time and how you manage during school holidays.
At the moment I work as an LSA, but I honestly don’t think I can deal with the workload, the pressure, and the lack of support anymore. I’m seriously considering leaving education altogether and moving into a non-education role. The only thing really worrying me is how I’ll manage the school holidays.

My plan would be to rely on holiday camps, and for the summer holidays I’d use my annual leave all at once. I don’t have any real support system apart from emergencies, so everything falls on me.

Where I’m thinking of going next is a small but busy store with a small team, so I know flexibility and taking time off like I can now just won’t be the same. But at the same time, I really feel like I can’t stay in my current role anymore.

I’d really appreciate hearing how others in a similar situation make it work, or any advice you might have.

I used childminder and when they were older holiday camps and my own annual leave when dc were younger.

After a while their dad started to boast how wonderful he was at “co parenting” so I replied “great - you need to cover 50% of their school holiday care moving forward” and that made things much easier and less expensive for me. He objected a bit at first but I held my ground (his “maintenance “ wouldn’t even cover one child’s care for a week) - eventually he got the hang of it.

of course their dad has to be involved for that to work.

Realistically there aren’t many workplaces that will let you use your leave all at once in the summer, especially a shop, because it’s not fair on everyone else. Parents aren’t more entitled to time off in the school hols than others.

Could you revise that plan and use your leave more evenly round the year? You’ll probably find there are some weeks there aren’t camps etc open anyway so you can target your leave.

I am a single parent by the way - I totally get it.

Unless you get a term time only contract it's unlikely you'll get the whole summer holidays off! What about the other parents in your potevtail team?

I used a mix of holiday clubs, grandparents and muddling through. I mainly work from home now and as the children are older some days they do hang around the house while I work - they know not to bother me. I couldn't do that everyday though as it's not fair on them.

Save for holiday club throughout the year so it isn’t just a massive bill in the summer. The one we used was £53 a day because it ran 8am-6pm unlike most which were school hours or less and find a club that they like, we used an outdoor pursuits centre where they do target sports, water sports, bushcraft, team building exercises and all sorts of good stuff including a full day kayak trip once a week along the river to a picnic in the park and foraging for berries and apples along the way.

Also make sure the holiday club is Ofsted registered so you can use the tax free childcare account to reduce the bill by 20%.

You can use parental leave to take up to 4 weeks a year unpaid at work for each child up to I think it’s 18 weeks total per child before they turn 18yo. There’s detailed info on the .gov website.

Other parent is a dead beat so no help from him whatsoever.

Yeah I get what you’re saying, and I agree I wasn’t trying to imply parents should get priority or anything.

The only reason I mentioned summer is because the pharmacy (I’ve worked at this pharmacy before)I’ve spoken to said they’d try to support me taking leave during school holidays where possible.

But realistically I know I’d need to spread my annual leave more evenly through the year and plan around camps where I can. I’m just trying to work out what’s actually doable as I know I can’t stay in my current role.

Same. It's tough when you don't have a co parent who actually steps up. When the children were younger it was super tough in the holidays.