My local holiday and after-school club has closed completely due to lack of funding and lack of numbers, which is a disaster!
I had to come up with Plan B for the summer holidays at 2 weeks' notice so, for the 6.5 weeks of the summer holidays I have had to take 2 weeks off, my husband is taking 2 weeks off, we're having one of those weeks together for a family holiday in Cornwall, so we have 3 weeks covered ourselves.
I've already taken the children to my parents for a week 200 miles away, and they're going to the other grandparents this week (120 miles away). For the rest of the time I'm working flexibly from home with the odd day in the office when I can arrange cover.
I did, however, find an alternative holiday club which looked great on paper, and it suited my 9 year old brilliantly. The problem is my 12 year old. The club takes children from 5-12 and he's almost 13. They went there for the first time yesterday and my 12 year old was not only the oldest by nearly 3 years, but much taller than all the others, and had the most awful time as he had no 'buddies' to hang out with.
I had thought I'd cracked it, but there is such a shortage of holiday schemes for over 12s. I cannot and will not leave them home alone while I go to the office 40 miles away for the day. Asking around locally, loads of other mums feel the same, so I'm still amazed no-one has picked this up. The older children who need the supervised clubs as much as the younger ones and there's absolutely nothing being provided.
The Extended Schools Scheme is not compulsory until 2010 so, as far as I can gather, local authorities are not releasing funding for holiday schemes until they have to. The impact of this is that those holiday clubs that were running and just about breaking even are closing down as they're considered unsustainable.
My only solution is to take loads of annual leave and just hope I have enough for the rest of the year.
Do you have children over 12? What do you do in the holidays? What do you think needs to be done? Email mandy@workingmums.co.uk.
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