How do you arrange picking up of kids from school when you work full time?

zippybungle

I work 4 days a week. I applied for 'flexible working' through my work, so I could start slightly later (so I can drop Kids of at 2 different Schools and 1 at a Nursery!). You might want to look into this

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Employment/Employees/Flexibleworking/DG_10029491

3 Days a week they go to the After School Club, 1 day my friend picks them up and on my day off I return the favour and pick her Daughter up.

As the others have said, it isn't easy and School Holidays are a nightmare, teacher training days are even worse as usually there are no childcare facilities open!.

Good Luck!

Spendless

So looking at the positives. Your child can be taken to school every morning by her Dad who can also pick her up on his weekday off. That's you looking at 4 x after-school childcare. You don't know yet if work will refuse any flexibility, even if they agree to you just working a short day once a week so you can pick up, you're now down to 3 x after school care.

Once you know what school she's going to, you can find out what their policy is on starting in Reception. The 4 schools within a mile radius of my home 1 starts them f-time 1st day, 1 (my kids) has them 1/2 days for 1st week only, the other 2 stagger them in for several weeks with several weeks of 1/2 days. Our nearby private nursery helps with the staggered starts and 1/2 days if your child attends. If your child is going to a nursery near the school she'll attend ask if they help, or save some AL to cover this time.

School hols- in the days before the same private nursery started running holiday club for upto 11, they would still take kids upto 6th birthday in hols, places permitting. Other than that a lot of schools run holiday clubs, that kids can attend even if they don't attend the conencted school. Ask about especially a working mum of older kids. They often know of every available place to send them.:D Could your DD sleep over at Grandparents in the school hols so they could do a couple of days care? Mine go to a sports club based holiday scheme. mine takes from 7, but that's something else to look into.

Spendless

zippybungle wrote: »

As the others have said, it isn't easy and School Holidays are a nightmare, teacher training days are even worse as usually there are no childcare facilities open!.

Good Luck!

My latest trick with this problem, is to check out the holiday club at the private school (it takes kids from any school not just theirs). Their hols are slightly out of sync with state schools eg they are off 2 weeks in October instead of 1, very handy for the inset day that follows my kids half term off. They were also off slightly different at Xmas and Summer which would have covered other inset days if I'd needed to use them. Alternatively I try and use my AL for these days in the hols and work during the actual school hol, cos as you say there is more available childcare, and then if we are feeling flush we go away, kids less likely to moan about being in kids clubs all week if they know they are getting a hol within it and using inset days often makes the hol cheaper. :T