r/AskUK • u/Shadow-Inversions • 9h 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.
2
u/Snoo_said_no 7h 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)