How Do You Manage School Holidays? (Especially Private Schools)

morse on 17/10/2023 - 08:30

We’re in the process of weighing up schools for our kid that will start prep QLD (kindergarten NSW) in 2025 (we need to decide now as the private schools do pre-prep 2024).

One deciding factor is school holidays. Comparing public and private the public has 43 school weeks and the private 39-40. So with 52 weeks in the year, how does everyone manage looking after their kids during holidays? Do you align your family holidays with these? Use vacation care? Take turns with friends?

We don’t have grandparents or other family around. We do have a network of friends with kids similar ages. Not super keen on doing lots of vacation care.

Any pros to the longer holidays with private schools? Seems like a decent negative to me. Both parents work.

Toys & Kids

Comments

  • thatonethere on 17/10/2023 - 08:41
    +1

    Can you work from home? Now that it is very common i have heaps of leave.

    Although the kids are now wanting me to work during holidays so they can have the house for themselves…

    • morse on 17/10/2023 - 13:44
      +3

      Yeah maybe when he’s older but I think he requires too much attention at the moment for me to actually get any work done at home.

    • HeWhoKnows on 18/10/2023 - 08:03
      +1

      LOL LOL LOL

  • GG57 on 17/10/2023 - 09:00
    +1

    Do you align your family holidays with these? Use vacation care? Take turns with friends?

    You have highlighted a few options.
    Another is holiday programs for the children, but they may also require some flexibility in drop off/pick up.

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 17/10/2023 - 09:03
    +6

    Import an au pair?

    • morse on 17/10/2023 - 13:43

      I do know people who have done this. Our house isn’t huge unfortunately, and also not sure how much I want someone else living with us despite the benefits.

      • Jimothy Wongingtons on 17/10/2023 - 13:52

        you already said you dont want to do vacation care..i guess the only other solution is some kind of casual nanny/baby sit service, but that's kind of the same?
        Unless you meant in your op private school as in one that also offers boarding.

        • morse on 17/10/2023 - 15:19

          I see your point. I guess I know we’ll use some vacation care but also don’t want to do it the whole time. It seems the private option will mean more total holiday time so he could still have as much family time but would need to do some vacation care as well.

  • JimmyF on 17/10/2023 - 09:16
    +4

    Comparing public and private the public has 43 school weeks and the private 39-40. So with 52 weeks in the year

    I'm not sure your public week count is correct…. There are normally 4 terms, with a 2 weeks break in the middle of each term, so that is 6 weeks. Xmas holidays normally start around the ~20th of Dec (give or take a few days), till the end of Jan in most cases, basically another 6 weeks. So 12 weeks all up, aka 40 weeks.

    You talked about NSW school, so here are the holidays for them

    https://www.nsw.gov.au/about-nsw/school-holidays

    Yikes if you are in the Western division, the xmas school holidays are 7 weeks long!

    Wednesday 20 December 2023 to Wednesday 7 February 2024

    We don’t have grandparents or other family around. We do have a network of friends with kids similar ages. Not super keen on doing lots of vacation care.
    Both parents work

    You don't really have a lot of choices here. Either offload the kids to friends, put them into vacation Holiday care, or take leave or if you can 'work' from home, do that.

    Outside of that, without family/friends to look after the kids at the age they are, you're kinda stuck with putting them into childcare if you can't get leave.

    The question is, who is looking after them now if you both work?

    • morse on 17/10/2023 - 13:42

      Thanks! Yes the holidays vary a lot. The private school we are looking at has 8 weeks over summer - a lot! At the moment he’s in daycare so there no school holidays, only public holidays. It’s brilliant and he likes it.

      • JimmyF on 17/10/2023 - 14:23
        +1

        Yes the holidays vary a lot. The private school we are looking at has 8 weeks over summer

        Yes with private you pay more for less teaching time! LOL

        Regardless, my point was there are at least 12 weeks holidays for public school, not the 9 as claimed.

        At the moment he’s in daycare so there no school holidays, only public holidays. It’s brilliant and he likes it.

        Then look into the OSH/Holiday programs at your selected school. You're going to need someone to look after them after school as well unless one of you finish early and maybe before school too.

        • morse on 17/10/2023 - 15:21

          Yes, I think we’re going to try and minimise before and after school care by one of us doing a late start and the one doing early start/finish. I feel a bit mean sending a 5yo for a long school day.

        • mattmel96 on 18/10/2023 - 08:18
          +1

          Yes with private you pay more for less teaching time! LOL

          Not necessarily true. At the private school my kids go to, they have slightly longer school days and No pupil-free days. So whilst we end up with longer holidays, I don't believe that they have less teaching time.

          Side bonus, as they finish school earlier in December, you can often travel before peak prices, so saving a motza.

          • JimmyF on 18/10/2023 - 09:00

            @mattmel96:

            they have slightly longer school days

            Lots of school recently have shortened the day by reducing the break/lunch time periods. Teaching contact time is still the same. So you can't just look at the start/end times.

            So what are the school start/end times as well as break times for your school?

            Side bonus, as they finish school earlier in December, you can often travel before peak prices, so saving a motza.

            Good bonus…. I guess you have to save money on travel to pay for the school fees ;)

            • mattmel96 on 24/10/2023 - 20:57

              @JimmyF: Hey @JimmyF

              Kids start at 8:30 and go through until 3:20

              Six (6) lessons: two (2) lessons, 15-min recess, two (2) lessons, 40-min lunch, two (2) lessons.

              Unlike some private schools, ours has a fantastic sibling discount where 2nd child is only 80% and 3rd (and subsequent) are free (small admin charge excluded). A lot of private schools only discount 3rd child at 50% and then free from 4th, so that has saved quite a bit too.

              Also like that kids have gone to one venue for K-12, so the transition from primary to secondary was very smooth.

              Yep, traveling on the off-peak shoulder has allowed some great overseas holidays at great savings.

          • Sensiekatie on 18/10/2023 - 14:33

            @mattmel96: The private schools often have no extracurricular stuff in school hours. It is solid teaching hours. Sport is on Saturdays. Additionally, in the main, the teachers are of higher standard (in the good schools)and if they don't perform, they are out.

            Having said that, my own opinion is it's definitely worth going private for high school if you have a child with academic or other abilities. The foundation work done in primary school is very important, so you need to pick a school where the kids are performing well in the NAPLAN tests. There has been quite a bit written about this recently: teachers not actually knowing how the young brain learns best, not knowing how to manage a classroom, and even not teaching reading the right way. The reading curricular has changed, but many schools are still teaching the method that has been found to be ineffective. I've read a couple of areas in NSW and ACT have actually retrained all their teachers so they understand how kids learn. Seems our teacher training has gone downhill.

  • Baysew on 17/10/2023 - 09:46
    +3

    Any pros to the longer holidays with private schools?

    Can spend more time in Europe.

  • geekcohen on 17/10/2023 - 09:58
    +6

    Personally, invest in Private Schools fees when they are going into High School. Just do public school for primary years.

    • afoveht on 17/10/2023 - 19:39
      +1

      Depends what (sort of) primary school - some are pretty foundational.

      • morse on 17/10/2023 - 20:28
        +1

        Yep this is the bit I’m struggling with. Sure you can look at results for NAPLAN at the point in time in primary school, but it’s unclear how that impacts on later years as we don’t have linked data publicly available. I’m starting to suspect that the primary years do feed into high school outcomes. And that doesn’t even take into account reducing transitions (this school is pre-prep - 12), social factors and potential absence from harm (hard to get a gauge on until your kid is in the school).

        • afoveht on 17/10/2023 - 21:07
          +1

          For sure. This will depend a lot on the school and the teaching methods they use, and the type of pupil you (think you) have. For example a Montessori primary education (I assume - I actually have little real exposure to Montessori) will set the pupil up for secondary somewhat differently to someone from a more mainstream school - what value that holds to you depends on your own expectations, what final outcome you are hoping the pupil will tend towards, what specific types of learning you think the pupil will respond to best, etc. It's not just academics too - there's more to rounding out a kid than just a good ATAR.

          At the end of the day it may require a more holistic approach than just following a general rule of thumb. NAPLAN results can be significant but they are not the all and end all.

          Probably more importantly, at the end of the day we're all usually just winging it so don't get too too caught up in it all. If there was one best way for all kids we'd all be doing it. Just be supportive and do your honest best - there will be mistakes and glories and questions of "what if" either way.

          Just my opinion. Good luck.

        • geekcohen on 18/10/2023 - 06:27

          Yep this is the bit I’m struggling with. Sure you can look at results for NAPLAN at the point in time in primary school, but it’s unclear how that impacts on later years as we don’t have linked data publicly available.

          There is a family in the street who recently were at a primary school and weren't satisfied, so they moved the kids to a private school (they are year 5 and year 7). So you can always do this. Even using a public school for a few years, and then moving to a private school.

          And that doesn’t even take into account reducing transitions (this school is pre-prep - 12)

          It's all about life experiences and building resilience! Most of the time, there would be some of their friends would go from the same primary school to secondary.

          How do you think kids go from Kinder/Daycare to school? There is a transition there!

      • geekcohen on 18/10/2023 - 06:24

        Yes, I do agree to a certain extent, but there are generally a number of options in areas nowadays, so you can pick a good one that just isn't a childcare like school (like some are).

        My view comes from a bit of an insider's view. My wife is a primary school teacher and has been to a few schools, when I compare that to my private school education (which was P-12 at the same school all the way through), I don't see much of a difference. Yes, at a private school you might get more facilities, more technology and other opportunities, but I don't see that as a huge impact on primary years. I got the most benefits in my senior years and the extra things I was able to take a part in (extra activities and opportunities which I didn't see available at public secondary schools).

  • Seraphin7 on 17/10/2023 - 10:09
    +3

    Younger primary kids … vacation care all the way.

    Older primary kids … activity camps, day at a friend's house, the odd WFH day, etc.

    High school kids … start fending for yourself!

  • GG57 on 17/10/2023 - 15:40

    I assume that you and your partner both accrue 20 working days leave per year. That is a total of 8 weeks, so you only need cover for the remainder.

    • morse on 17/10/2023 - 19:31

      Yep that’s right. Plus public holidays. It’s just the extra weeks with private school blow that out a lot. I’m a big believer in a strong public system but I think in reality many public schools are struggling and I want to give my child the best opportunity I can afford. Our system in Australia is now that if private schools weren’t part of the offering public schools wouldn’t cope. So I’m stuck right in the middle of being decent assets and income but not rich, average public school catchment area and affordable ( for us) but excellent private school. The extra holidays are the one thing I’m trying to get my head around.

  • jolee3 on 17/10/2023 - 23:22

    We are weighing up similar options, our eldest is starting kindy (NSW) in 2025. We don't need to decide just yet as he will be doing prep at the daycare he is already attending, but we're looking at both our local public and a few local private schools and need to confirm early 2024. We have the added complexity of working out our schedule with the youngest still in daycare!

    From talking with friends and work colleagues, a lot of parents seem to tag team and do parts of the school holiday each. Combine that with a little bit of vacation care - kids apparently enjoy it as it's a long day but also "fun" compared to school days - and it's just enough, but there is nothing to spare. It does mean if you take family holidays and both of you are off at the same time, you probably won't have enough to cover the whole year. If you can afford some leave without pay then that's alright, I'm also trying to bank as much leave as I can in the meantime.

  • Nicoletta on 18/10/2023 - 09:22
    +1

    It’s always a juggle!

    For us, one parent worked part-time and purchased extra leave to cover the holidays. There was some vacation care, holidays with Nanna, play dates with friends or shuffling of work hours to accommodate. Now they’re teenagers, we have new problems lol.

    I wouldn’t choose a school solely based on the number of weeks they will attend. Might be cheaper to take leave without pay for those extra weeks!!

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