School holidays with 2 working parents??????????

[Tom]

How the hell do you manage school holidays????

My boy, Cole, is eligible for State Nursery this September - between 1 and 3.30 pm. After payin gover £200 a week for nursery, this is a blessed relief, and it's not hard to figure out how things can work in term time...

My wife and I both work from home, with complete flexibility... so she can look after our boy in the morning until he goes to nursery at 1pm, and I'll work early morning until 3.30, then pick him up and take over until bedtime... easy. BUT.

What the hell do you do in the school holidays? I get 5 weeks holiday a year, and she is self employed, so if she stops working, she stops earning. It's about 13/14 weeks in the year when there's no childcare provision whatsoever... or at least none that I know about.

So it seems like we'll have to keep him in day nursery until he goes to school proper in a year's time, which will cost us loads, but he'll get decent educational input and there's no problem with holidays... OR... another solution that I've not heard of yet.

And anways, when he starts school, the same problems remain - what the hell do you do in the school holidays?????

That meant to read £200 per month, not week!

Perennial problem, Tom. We are facing just this situation in September when our son starts school and is suddenly available at 3.30pm instead of 5.30pm...check what provision your intended school offers in terms of after-school clubs. Check your local council's website for details of local childminders who will do pick-ups from your school - they quite often specify this. Ask around at the school gates - what do other parents do?
In the nick of time, our intended school has decided there is sufficient demand to launch an on-site after-school club, which is my personal ideal solution as I have been unlucky with childminders, although lots of people on the site have good experiences of them.
As to holiday care, well many local authorities and organisations like Camp Beaumont run holiday clubs which will take care of some of that time. As we both work in education we hope to stagger leave in order to spend as much time as possible with ds, but it's comparatively easy for us to do that. Hopefully others who are already in the thick of this will have some more suggestions for you.

After school isn't a problem - I'll pick up my boy and do everything with him until bedtime - his mum works between 2pm and 9pm every day, so we've been doing this for years anyway.

One of my mates is involved in running the after school club for the school in question, and he says they don't take the nursery kids, just the primary kids. But like I say, it's not a problem, because I do the pm childcare anyway.

The big issue is holidays - if you're in education, then it's a doddle, but if you're not - what the hell do you do (apart from become a teacher!!)

After school isn't a problem - I'll pick up my boy and do everything with him until bedtime - his mum works between 2pm and 9pm every day, so we've been doing this for years anyway.

One of my mates is involved in running the after school club for the school in question, and he says they don't take the nursery kids, just the primary kids. But like I say, it's not a problem, because I do the pm childcare anyway.

The big issue is holidays - if you're in education, then it's a doddle, but if you're not - what the hell do you do (apart from become a teacher!!)

Ah, but you don't have to be a teacher, Tom...librarian, administrator...a lot of jobs in FE and HE, as well as the schools sector, are quite adaptable to flexible working and minimal attendance (with corresponding drop in annual salary, of course) during the long holidays in particular.

After school isn't a problem - I'll pick up my boy and do everything with him until bedtime - his mum works between 2pm and 9pm every day, so we've been doing this for years anyway.

One of my mates is involved in running the after school club for the school in question, and he says they don't take the nursery kids, just the primary kids. But like I say, it's not a problem, because I do the pm childcare anyway.

The big issue is holidays - if you're in education, then it's a doddle, but if you're not - what the hell do you do (apart from become a teacher!!)

Why do I keep reposting the same message? Is it cos I keep refreshing the page? Oops - sorry!

Anyways - we're not changing our jobs! We're quite happy thanks - my wife is self employed as a singer/vocal coach and I'm a senior manager at a charity - and we both work from home

It's just that we can't get that much time off for holidays - I've no bloody idea what we're gonna do!!

Tom - we had a similar problem when our two. They had previously been at a day nursery and started at the nursery which was attached to the school exactly a year before they were due to start at school. We, like you, were able to cover the out of school hours between us and mil but the holidays seemed impossible. The playschemes only take them at 'school age'. We decided that there were three choices

1. a childminder (which was difficult as I didn't need one during term time)
2. a nanny/student type person who would mind them at home, often students who are teacher training or similar try and get these type of roles for holidays - these students often do placements in schools.
3. Their old nursery. We went for this option. As funded nursery places are for term time only, the day nursery they used to attend found that some of their usual children didn't attend in the school holidays leaving space for a few extras - ds and dd knew the staff, the staff knew them and ds and dd spent the holidays with their old nursery friends. Good luck - there are ways around it.....

why don`t you place an add at the school,there might be some SAHM wanting to earn some money for looking after your ds

Whymummy - we did think of asking one of the Mum's of their new friends but, at that time, they were strangers to us and ds and I used to think - what if I pick the one parent who has a personality problem and beats her kids.

Hello Tom, you havent posted for ages!

Some of my friends link up at half term or holidays and look after each others chldren. So for instance at half term, the parent(s) of the first family take 2 days off work and the parent(s) of the other family take 3 days. This halves the time that each of you need to take off work.
Maybe this could be at least a partial solution, and very minimal cost. There are lots of parents who find holidays difficult so hopefully not too hard to find someone to do this with?

I thought if you paid someone for childcare they had to be registered??

you just have to get to know them go to their house,maybe pick someone with a child same age as yours etc,just make sure she`s nice and reliable

Hi Enid
Nice to be back with u folks... I've been busy!!!
The nursery idea sounds good, but ours is so stuck for places, I doubt it'd work.
I wouldn't want a SAHM/D looking after his, as I don't know them, they're not accountable, and where's the educational input etc...

Seems to me there's a kiling to be made by someone setting up a kids holiday care business!!!

I went back to work after my 2 sons were born, but have now decided to give up and stay at home for a while. I have one son going to school in Sept and a 2 yr old.
It has been so easy with them were both in nursery, but it just gets too complicated in Sept, especially if you don't have any family close by who can help out.

Sorry, but I personally would not consider anyone that is not registered. Once you get into the school system and the kids make friends etc. then you start to have each others kids after school or for days but initially, before they started at the school I would not have entertained the idea unless any of the Mum's were also registered childminders.

Tom - are you sure that they are that stuck for places? You often find that, officially, they will be at their quota so there may be a waiting list for new starters but they usually do get advanced warning when regular attendees will be away on holiday - these often do coincide with school holidays especially if the children have older siblings.
There is no harm in asking!!

Sorry, another thought has just pinged into my brain (it gets there eventually!!). Our local Montessori nursery does holiday care - as they are a nursery I am sure they would take a pre-schooler. Not sure if they all do though.

Just to re-iterate - the problem here is not after school - that's easy - I do the after school care. The problem is the holidays...

Neither of us are going to give up work, or change to be in the educational sector.

We have some friends with kids the same age we could swap with, but that doesn't leave you with much, as it could mean that all of you spend the next 14 years when the kids are in school taking holiday from work in order to look after a large group of kids - not much of a holiday!

The options are pretty thin on the ground...

• holiday club - can't find any in my area
• other parents/taking turns to look after the kids - sure but that means we all spend our holidays looking after a large group of kids
• back to nursery - only works for 3/4 age group - not when they're older

Is it me, or is this just totally uncatered for on a mass level? Am I missing something here - we can't be the only parents who both work - and no, we don't earn shed loads of money, so it's not as easy as throwing money at the problem.

2 weeks at Easter... weeks in the Summer... 2 weeks at Christmas, plus three half terms...

Who the hell is gonna to look after the children?!!

What's interesting here is that all the possible solutions are 'ducking and diving' options - "maybe" this and "possibly" that - it astounds me that no one has thought of putting something into place to cater for children of dual worker parents.

It seems to be as though everyone assumes someome will stay at homs to look after them. Which, with the pay gap between men and women, will be mum 80% of the time.

Tom
One of the options that I looked at before deciding to give up work is private education. All the private schools in our area do after school and holiday care.
The only problem with this is cost.....

lol!
Nice.. but too pricey!
A problem without a solution? Some bright spark could make a packet from this

. o O (wonders what would be involved in setting up holiday club for kids)

Tom, our entire lousy (lack of) childcare system is predicated on the idea that mothers will be at home!!!! (and/or grandmothers can be somehow produced)...