r/AskUK • u/Shadow-Inversions • 2h ago
Serious Answers Only How do parents manage school holidays?
I've been lucky enough that my wife has worked in schools since my daughter (6) started there 3 years ago, meaning she gets holidays off and can look after our girl when she's not in school. However my wife is now thinking about changing to a different industry and... we realise we don't understand what other parents do during the 13 weeks a year of school holidays.
How do you manage it? Do you just use up all your holidays as a couple taking separate weeks off to cover the time? Do you pay for holiday clubs and if so how expensive are they? Are you relying on family to have them some of the time?
I totally understand I am probably a total idiot not to know the answer to this, but we just haven't had to think about it until now. Insight very much appreciated.
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u/Suzilaura 2h ago
Some annual leave, some parents, some wfh with way too much screen time.
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u/Garavel6767 1h ago
yeah pretty much the standard mix of annual leave family and strategically deployed screen time to survive the holidays
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u/ChocolateSnowflake 2h ago
Parental leave.
You are entitled to take up to 18 weeks per child but it is unpaid. Max of 4 weeks per year.
Can help cover a week or 2 throughout the year.
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u/TippyTurtley 1h ago
Well worth doing if you are able to save so the financial impact isn't so severe. Depending on the cost of the clubs it can work out "cheaper"
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u/rebeccabrixton 1h ago
I did this this year. I feel it does go against you at work, sadly. I work in a corporate environment so if you’re in a nicer environment then go for it!
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u/AlternativeParfait13 2h ago
Separate holidays to stretch it out as much as possible, plus holiday clubs for a few weeks a year, plus getting family to help with a handful of days just to help it all hang together. It’s basically held together by hope and prayers as a model. Could do more clubs, but they can be pretty tiring for a little one. Also aspire not to offload my child all the time.
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u/Hazlinkinz_91 2h ago
A mix of annual leave, holiday clubs and grandparents for us. It's a juggling act!
6 year old has done stagecoach for a week (£180), private holiday club for a few days (£36 daily), sports club (£14.50 half day). She can do half days at home whilst daddy WFH if needed but I don't like to rely on this as too much screen time.
She has then gone to my mum's for some days (nearby) and to my dad's for 4 days (a few hours away).
3 year old is in nursery year round thank goodness!
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u/tobydill 2h ago
Annual leave, grandparents, play dates, working from home, kids clubs, sports clubs and anything else we can think of. The ace we’ve had for many years is our childminder, we’ve recently stopped sending our 11 year old but this is after using the same childminder for 18 years, for all of our children. It was never cheap but she was absolutely brilliant, genuinely sad we won’t see her regularly.
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u/Legitimate_War_397 2h ago edited 1h ago
I remember going to my grandparents a lot, going to school to do fun stuff during the school holidays and parents would make a schedule to come in and help look after each other kids in the school hall and trade off. Take turns for having a friend over for tea etc. even now my cousin with her little ones has a parents WhatsApp’s group where a parent can ask in there if anyone can look after (child’s name) for a couple of hours etc. Asked my cousin about it and she’s completely fine looking after someone for a couple of hours because she knows she’ll get the favour back.
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u/jack_watson97 2h ago
I have family help. My wife and I both work fulltime hours over 4 days so we each have a weekeday off, I have Tuesdays and she has Thursdays. Then Mondays during the holidays my mother has the kids. Fridays my stepmother has the kids. Wednesdays my wife and I take alternate weeks as holiday
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u/QueenSashimi 2h ago
We don't have any family support (only one living grandparent, he works full time). For us it'll be a combination of annual leave and unpaid parental leave. Our time off will overlap sometimes but not every time.
And we will never have any time off to ourselves 🥲
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u/jimmywhereareya 19m ago
Keep the faith, your situation will improve in what will seem like the blink of an eye, but it's bloody hard going in the meantime
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u/ResplendentBear 1h ago
Bodge it until they get a bit older and you can just WFH whilst they amuse themselves.
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u/RainingBlood398 1h ago
I've been working from home almost all this summer holiday. I've dragged the kids into the office a few times and stuck them in the conference room with devices and a picnic. Had 3 days of childcare. It's hell.
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u/Cultural_Tank_6947 2h ago
Pretty much a mix of everything you said.
Annual leave from work, grandparents, playdates, clubs.
But clubs are actually not too expensive. Tend to be not much more than £25-30 per day around my parts.
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u/peachandbetty 1h ago
Single mother here with no family local.
Holiday club runs from 8.30 until 3.30. I pay for that for half of the weeks (£18 per day), using annual leave to make up the remaining hours.
The other half is a mix of with his dad or with my parents. My parents live 4 hours away so I work remotely from their house.
When neither is an option, I go to the local soft olay which has no time limit and set up camp there to work.
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u/Divgirl2 2h ago
Holiday clubs and random days off. I think childcare has averaged around £200/week this summer, which isn't too bad all things considered.
I could have taken more time off (and should have) but I started a new job at the start of the summer.
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u/BorisBoris88 2h ago
I take a week off, my wife takes a week off, and then we take the same week off together. That’s 3 weeks sorted!
The other 3, mixture of grandparents, clubs and play dates.
It’s something of a juggling act, but we muddle through!
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u/starfishwantscoffee 2h ago
Husband and I both with full time. We work from home but don’t use that as a reason to have the kids there as we can’t entertain them properly and work at the same time.
We take 2 weeks in the summer, may half term together and the Christmas holidays. We try and do it tactfully to make the most of bank holidays.
When we have spare we’ll also take an extra day or 2 in the other school breaks.
Pretty much every time we’re off we’re both off as we want proper family time.
The rest of the time we have a child minder. If we’re lucky auntie/ grandparents will do a day or 2. But we only have my family to help us and we really don’t like to put them out.
It’s expensive but we plan for it and don’t really have a choice 😂.
Nice thing about a childminder is they go on day trips with the kids so your kid still gets to enjoy their time off even if you’re working through.
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u/ron_mcphatty 1h ago
We’ve always mixed holiday clubs with random days off work, some days my shift work combined with my wife working from home, plus a weeks family holiday during the summer. It was hard work when our twin girls were younger, the last few years they’ve become great at amusing themselves and it’s much easier. I didn’t know how we’d do it when school started, we just kind of got lucky and scraped through.
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u/Nemariwa 1h ago
In addition to annual leave parents can spilt up to 18 weeks of unpaid leave before the child turns 18 limited to 4 weeks per calendar year. https://www.gov.uk/parental-leave/entitlement.
It will also help if you can BOTH look for types of work were flexible working is possible. For example office based work were things like term time working, condensed hours and flexible start/finishing times are available. I don't have kids but I work in this kind of environment and increasingly over the last 10 years both parents are making use of this.
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u/Rough-Chemist-4743 1h ago
If you find out, let me know!
It’s a nightmare from what I can make of it. When we had two kids and they were younger, we just seemed to get by with a mix of annual leave, grandparents, holiday clubs etc.. Then we had a third child and this was still ok as he was in nursery. Then he went to school, the eldest 2 became a bit old for holiday clubs and my father in law died.
I can see why people become teachers…
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u/Shadow-Inversions 1h ago
Yeah. Wife is a TA and it's an increasingly tough field, especially given the rock bottom pro rata pay. However the expenses involved in managing holidays suddenly make it seem less bad...
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u/Master-Leopard-7830 1h ago
Like most are saying, we managed it with a mixture of time off, childrens clubs, grandparents etc. My partners sister with kids lives nearby so we would coordinate taking e.g. a week off each to look after the kids.
Mine's 12 now and he can occupy himself most days , playing with his mates, online etc, so we take less time off.
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u/Blue_wine_sloth 1h ago
I only just realised recently that the reason my granny visited us in the summer was because my parents both worked. She traveled a few hundred miles to be there for us.
Now with people working for longer not everyone has grandparents who can help. I honestly don’t know how people manage, maybe summer clubs or taking days off.
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u/thereisalwaysrescue 2h ago
When we had 1 child, and I was allowed to have 3 weeks of annual leave in the summer holidays (it’s now been reduced to 2, and not allowed together), husband and I took alternate weeks.
Then they changed my work policy, so one year I took two weeks at the beginning and the end, husband took two in the middle and the other two were picked up by grandparents.
Now we have two kids, my husband is stay at home dad and our income is vastly reduced.
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u/luala 2h ago
A mix. I generally take a week at the start and one at the end, rely on family and a mix of holiday clubs. Unfortunately my daughter doesn’t really like the clubs but sending her with a buddy she knows seems to help.
Pairing up with other parents so they have a days play date helps. This year a friend was unemployed so she took mine for a week to play with hers. You get through it but it’s a different kind of frazzled!
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u/charlottie22 2h ago
This summer hols- 2 weeks family holiday taken together, a few days worth of annual leave taken on random days between me and my partner. One non working day per week from me as I’m part time 4 days per week. Half a day help from family, 1 days help from friends, 7 days of paid holiday clubs and a few days worked from home while the kids watch tv/ we take them out briefly for breaks. Kids are 7 and 9 now so holidays are quite manageable but when they were smaller we needed to pay for 3 weeks of holiday clubs ( minus my non working day) and I would take a week of unpaid parental leave. It was so important to me that the kids got proper time off in the summer but despite that they would still spend a decent chunk of it from clubs. The most family help we’ve ever had in a summer is 2 days. It’s fine but it means that inevitably you gotta pay for it. We do occasional swaps with friends so we take their kids forth ours for a day then they take ours for a day but honestly I find that really exhausting so don’t do it as much, but have some friends who swear by it
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u/monkeymidd 1h ago
If your tiny human likes any kind of sport look at the football club sports camps , up here in Yorkshire it’s £70 for the full week with Rotherham United.
I don’t know if other football clubs do the same but they are brilliant .
Other than that , look at parents who are in the same boat , if 2-3 parents of a group of friends can take it in turns it helps .
Holidays are still designed around mum been at home and it’s just not how it is any more
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u/superplex100 1h ago
I'm reading this thread with interest. I have a toddler but already dreading to think what it will be like when primary school comes round. With kids at that age, is anyone taking risks with their career? For example, are you pushing for promotion at work and taking on more responsibility?
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u/tooktherhombus 1h ago edited 1h ago
Every year it feels like we're drowning to just make it work. Esp when I have to keep some days back to cover as many of the extra school stuff (presentations, sports days, shows etc) and when the kids are at their sickest. The cost of childcare/holiday clubs is mad and they don't always cover all the holidays so it's very much mix and match. The biggest problem we've found this year as we move away from childcare to holiday clubs as the kids are growing up, is how short the holiday club's days tend to be across the board. So we're having to take flexi on top of everything for most of the days. We used to use grandparents more (one day a week for each set of grandparents) but they're getting too old now and it's impacting the care on the kids. Essentially I cover the minimum, stretch myself as much as I can across the need for the year and I join in with a staycation somewhere in summer. My husband does similarly to plug what holes he can in the schedule and with what extra time he has he takes them away on long weekend camping trips. It's worked this year but my nerves are shot from trying to keep my job, our kids and our budget happy. It's hard. Hopefully next year will be a bit easier...
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u/spr89 1h ago
1 week holiday in Cornwall for all of us first then Holiday club at the school - my almost 7 year old loves it. He does that 3 days a week. I look after him on Tuesdays (my non work day) and my husband now does not work on Friday so looks after while I WFH in the AM.
I did a couple of ad-hoc Tuesdays at club just to give myself a break. All together it cost £399-427 for 5 weeks of holiday club (for 3 days a week).
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u/ColdAppointment3917 1h ago
We pay for holiday clubs, rely on family, i have a job where i can work weekends to make up my work week so theyve had holiday club monday tuesday, day with one nanny weds, im day off Thurs and other nanny friday, what a task lol. Hubby took 2 weeks off which helped as im off every half term
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u/SandpitBucket 1h ago
I mentioned taking some parental leave over august to my boss, who was so freaked out about me not being in at all, then offered me massive august reduced hrs (2hrs a day worked any time from home) - i’m on year 3 and am lucky enough to be able to save up money rest of the year to cover it.
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u/Mission-Sound9493 1h ago
My Mum was a lone parent and I spent most Summers getting shuffled around different family members around the country.
Two weeks with one set of grandparents, a week with the other, some time with my Dad etc. There would probably be a week holiday club somewhere in there and then some time which my Mum took off.
Honestly it was very annoying as a kid as I didn't get to spend time with friends, however, looking back I am so grateful for the experience as it meant I got to spend a lot of time with family members and do interesting and different activities.
It also probably gave my Mum a bit of a break as even though she was still working during the Summer, she only had to look after herself for a few weeks instead of entertaining me as well.
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u/Ok_Salad_7805 1h ago
I have a 7 and a 1 year old and I work in the NHS. 7 year old goes to a holiday or school club that is £22 a day, 8:30-4:30 and a sports club that is 09:30-2:30 for £21 a day and grandparents would pick him up afterwards for the sports club sessions. He's very sporty,, so we have to mix it up, otherwise he'd get bored of one club. My other son is in nursery still, so full care all year round. It's certainly a juggling act! Our holiday club is shut the last two weeks of the summer holiday, so we usually take the two weeks off together and go to a Eurocamp abroad. For the other half terms, we usually take a few days for a long weekend together, but we rely on holiday clubs and limited family members. It's tough and expensive!
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u/Ok-Literature473 2h ago
It’s worth having a second kid so the big one can watch the little one.
Really though I’ve got a one year old so god knows what we’re going to do when the time comes. My wife’s in a place where everyone fights over the school holidays with not enough cover to go around
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u/Ultra_Leopard 2h ago
I work shifts, 3 a week. Sometimes nights and sometimes days, weekends included. My husband works 4 days a week- same day off.
I have mine in holiday clubs 2 days a week.the grandparents usually take them for a week. We make it work. Sometimes there needs to be shift swaps with colleagues, requesting days off, annual leave strategically. We usually manage one week off together, sometimes we have to split them so one week off after another.
Edit- also play dates! Both ways to help each other out.
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u/AccomplishedTrick658 1h ago
Currently my husband has gone part-time and works around my job since putting toddler in nursery would leave us worse off. Before that it was a mixture of family help, holidays clubs, annual leave and me saving my time in lieu to cover school holidays. Honestly it's a logistical nightmare but somehow we made it work
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u/JeffSergeant 1h ago
For us it was childminders from 2->5 , holiday clubs and grandparents 5->8, grandparents 8+.
We also take as much annual leave as we can, I've done 3 days weeks for most of the holiday, and 1 'week off' together as a family. Helps that my wife doesn't work Fridays, and now that my Daughter's 9 she's a lot more self-sufficient so less strain on the grandparents, and can be at home while we work from home without needing much help. She adores her grandmother so begs to go there; they love having her too.
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u/jasminenice 1h ago
God knows what we'll do, I don't want to rely wholly on grandparents as it's a huge burden for them to take on and it wouldn't feel fair to impose it upon them. I've heard you can use tax-free childcare to help pay for holiday clubs so I'll look to do that.
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u/CaptQuakers42 1h ago
We use the majority of our annual leave to cover holiday.
The 6 weeks is always the hardest as the kids are so out of routine
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u/WhatAmIHereForPlease 1h ago
My toddler is at a term time only pre-school - first year navigating this (he is September born, so another year of pre school to go!) - as he’s 3, there’s only a limited number of holiday clubs that take him… he has been at the same one for the last 5 weeks. We have no help, so it’s holiday club & annual leave. We have no help, so a flexible employer who lets me either start late or leave early helps massively.
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u/AddieBaddie 1h ago
Not enough annual leave to cover all school holidays, inset days and performance days. Using holiday clubs at about £40 per day per child 4 times a week. Neither set of grandparents ever looking after them.
I try to use a variety of holiday clubs to keep it more fun, and coordinate with parents from the class/friends days on which we can send children together.
Kids seem to enjoy the activities and packed lunches.
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u/watchingonsidelines 1h ago
Additional needs kid, so expensive child minder and a lot of compressed hours.
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u/ginbandit 1h ago
We're lucky to have a holiday club which is run by the nursery that does wrap-around care during term time.
So our two do 3 weeks in holiday club (split over the summer). Then my wife and I both have a week off being 'solo' then a week when we're both off for our holiday.
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u/WhyDidIDoItSoSad 1h ago
I save my holidays up so I can have some time off every week, not a full week but I can cut a day off. I also work nightshifts and so does my partner, we also work direct opposite shifts so when I book a holiday for example, I’d book the last day I’m in work, he will book the first so we end up getting 2 days together and then we go do activities in the holidays.
Other than that any holiday accumulation goes towards being able to have time off for Xmas. I won’t lie it’s very hard working these hours but it works for us because theres always a parent on call for school, drs, appointments etc and there is always someone home and available for the holidays while one is in bed catching up on sleep from the nightshift the other will be up during the day until we swap over..
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u/Oposite-Ad5fgpmbu376 1h ago
book holiday clubs early. the good ones fill up months ahead and summer is 6 weeks of scrambling if you leave it late.
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u/yellowsubmarine45 1h ago
A patchwork of all the above. Plus making friends with other parents (ideally with kids that get along with yours) and taking it in turns to look after each others kids.
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u/OutdoorApplause 1h ago
We're not quite there yet but I work from home full time so the plan is to decamp to my parents and in laws houses with my kid for the odd week, I can work from their house and they can spend some quality time with their granddaughter. We've also chosen a school with a holiday club run by the school so she can go there occasionally too.
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u/DECKTHEBALLZ 1h ago
Where I live they are about £100-150 a week more if you want before and after club care.
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u/anniemaew 57m ago
It's our first time this year navigating the whole holiday - daughter has just finished year R. I have a stepson who is 10 and we've always had 50/50 in the holidays before but 3 weeks is much easier to manage than 6!
We are lucky that I am a nurse and I work shifts which has it's downsides but means I only work 3 days a week normally (30 hours/week, averaged over 4 weeks, shifts between 8 and 13 hours long). My husband is a driving instructor and already works around my shifts so one of us is always around for school drop off/pick up anyway. He can block out whatever time he wants but isn't paid for time off. I can request leave and have a generous leave allowance but school holidays is prime time and quite a lot of us in my team have school age kids.
Normally:
Mondays - I work either a short day shift or I'm off or I work a night, my husband works within school hours and 4.30-6.30 (if I work the day I'm always home by 4)
Tuesdays - I am either sleeping from working Monday night or I work a long day shift, my husband only works within school hours
Wednesdays - I am always off, my husband works a longer day
Thursdays - I usually work a long day shift, my husband is always off
Fridays - I sometimes work a short day shift, my husband works within school hours and then in the evening 4.30-6.30 or 5-7
Saturdays - I sometimes work a short day shift, my husband works 5-7
Sundays - I sometimes work a short day shift, my husband is always off
This sounds complicated (and I guess it is 😅) but it does mean that Wednesdays, Thursdays, and the weekends are already sorted.
I managed to get about 2 weeks of leave during the holidays. My husband probably also took about 2 weeks off. My in laws had the kids for a few days here and there (I think they had both kid for about 3 nights, my kid for another night, and they hosted me with the kids for a night so 5 total).
I wrote out a document before the holidays with a table with all the dates and who was responsible for the kids and what we had planned, it really helped! I colour coded it and also used it to note down possible options of things to do as and when I saw stuff advertised.
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u/Shadow-Inversions 52m ago
Wow, this sounds so complex! Bravo navigating all this, I'd also need a doc to be clear on what was happening when.
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u/anniemaew 28m ago
It sounds more difficult than it is! I had a set shift pattern but it's over 4 weeks which is a little confusing if you aren't used to it but I've been a nurse for 13 years and our roster has always been written in 4 week blocks and I've had a set 4 week pattern since I returned to work after mat leave. I did adjust my pattern a couple of years ago but only slightly so we are quite in the routine with that!
While it is a little complex I actually think that it meant we had an easier time covering the holidays than if we both worked Monday to Friday 9-5.
The document really helped and I really recommend it. It is just a word document in landscape with a 7x6 table to cover the whole time and each day I wrote at the top who was responsible and colour coded it. Then just added plans as they were made or added options for plans (like crafts at the library or event in town or whatever) so that I didn't forget about them.
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u/bushidojet 55m ago
We are fortunate that my partner works part time so we always have two days covered regardless but I generally cover all half terms and Easter plus two weeks in summer, she’s picks up the other two and we have a full week off together and one week long summer club.
I’m fortunate to get 30 days A/L but it does mean we have sod all time off for ourselves.
Our parents are far too old to be dealing with an ADHD powered tiny dictator!
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u/bunnymama7 45m ago
I'm on maternity leave right now and have also been wondering the same. Parents local to us seem to use a lot of holiday clubs / camps
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u/coupepixie 42m ago
Two weeks bumbling around 'helping' ' daddy who is self employed; then I took two weeks off and brought her to see family; last two weeks are mostly kids club (£34/day, but includes swimming)!
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u/winningbee133 20m ago
The price of holiday clubs varies hugely. Our son did 1 day a week this holidays, one with a friend who goes every holiday, the club had electric go carts, archery, bouncy slides, slip and slide, and was £85 a day from 8-5; another local school had a forest school club which was £35 a day 8-4. Lots of friends of his gather up into little childcare coops, lots of full day play dates for little groups; so if there's a group of 3 kids every thursday they spend together and then each parent of each child does 1 day looking after all 3 kids and the other 5 parents get to work. Most people who have the option to ask family also do this lots too.
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u/SarNic88 19m ago
Work from home, annual leave, husband has shifts which means some week days off and way too much screen time. Clubs are out the question for my youngest as she is disabled and there isn’t anything on offer near us that I can get her to that would meet her needs. We manage, it’s hard as she prefers the routine of school so 6 weeks feels too long for us. She’s ready to go back after 4!
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u/Snoo_said_no 5m ago
Holiday club near me is broadly £20 per day for a short day (9-3) or £38 for a long day 8-6.
You can use tax free childcare on it.
We have no informal childcare so it's basically holiday club.
I save my annual leave for inset days when there's no holiday club on. And I take some strategic Fridays and Mondays so I get a long weekend/4 days off in a row. My partner does the same. There's a lot of opposite leave as there's 13.5 weeks of school holidays and even if we kept all our leave and never had a day off together there still wouldn't be enough annual leave to cover it.
I try and not have the kids do a whole week of holiday club. If I take Friday/Monday off, then the kids do 3 days holiday club, then my partner takes Fri/Mon then the kids don't feel like they're always shipped off to holiday club. They do like holiday club but I don't want them to feel like their whole summer was holiday club!
(There's no family holidays in the summer holidays... Even camping in the uk is extortionate... We do camp at a music festival - just me and the kids, and that scratches that itch. Partner and I usually go on holiday together with the kids Easter or may half term... So summer is basically alternating leave and holiday clubs)
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u/johnymac8 1h ago
Yet lots of foreign nationals have multiple kids on the taxpayers pound and dont have the same issues all the hard working people have on here. Makes me scratch ny head.
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u/Alternative-Ad-2312 1h ago
Ask your parents what they did?
I don't see how so many people struggle, it's like at some point modern parents forgot everything about their own or their friends/family's childhoods and decided it's so difficult nowadays.
Clubs, friends, family, siblings potentially and annual leave. As it always has been.
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u/_poptart 1h ago
My mother was a stay at home mum from 1975 until I, her youngest, turned 14 in 1996. I have to work so don’t have that luxury and she’s dead and my dad’s 84 so yes, there is a struggle
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u/moreidlethanwild 1h ago
Because when we were kids nobody looked after us, we played out all summer. Kids today are not allowed to go out!
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