At my son’s school you are not allowed to bring your child with you to the meeting with the teacher and you are expected to make child care arrangements. There are a few slots just after school when you can leave your child in the library and they will be supervised, but there are only 3 of these per class per session.
Normally childcare isn’t a problem as my parents are close at hand, but this time they are away so it wasn’t so easy. There is another close friend that could help, but the parent’s evenings fall on days that she is working, so that was no go. So for the first time in three years I asked for one of the precious three slots. I didn’t get it. Now I know that these slots are in high demand, but I’d never asked before and I did have genuine need of one. It made me wonder then about how single parents manage. Now it might be that the school know who they are and they make sure they get one of the slots. There are at least two in J’s class, but there may be more. Three slots doesn’t really go very far.
The school say that you can book the children into the after school club if there is room, but the nights that they have picked for parent’s evening are the days when the club is fully booked anyway. Even if there were places, unless you already attend regularly, you have to pay a joining fee and then the cost of the session. It all starts to get a bit expensive.
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