Parents and guardians on how they manage leave and school holidays

Australia Broadcast Center

a day ago

Parent math is realising the number of weeks your cherubs spend away from the classroom each year dwarfs your annual leave entitlements.
Going from the year-round consistency of day care and (if you're lucky) grandparent help, to managing two-week (three in the NT) breaks and those long (so long) Christmas school holidays, can be quite a shock to the system.
We spoke with three different parents about how they juggle the gap between annual leave entitlements and school holiday breaks.
Nicky Moffat works as a nature campaigner in Queensland and is based on Kabi Kabi lands on the Sunshine Coast.
She and her partner work full time and get a combined eight weeks leave per year, which they strategically use (and save) to help take care of their eight-year-old daughter Polly.
Both have some flexibility to work from home, but Nicky says she can also change her work hours to avoid dipping into her leave.
"I'm technically full time but our workplace is doing a four-day work week trial," she says.
"We [also] have 'flex', so within your pay cycle you can just flex your time as you need to.
"So, if you need to do 10 hours one day you do it, you just do six the next."
Nicky also works early mornings or late evenings so she can spend the day with her daughter without having to take annual leave.
"I just work really long nights to get my work done, or I'll get up at stupid o'clock, so I was up at three today and I'll get most of my workday done before everyone's even awake."
She says the couple will often "tag team" school holiday leave, but it means they don't spend a lot of time holiday together as a family.
"We usually save up annual leave for the end of the year and take that off together," she says.
"So, we really only have about one three-week block of family time."
Emma-Kate Callaghan is a deputy principal at a school in Nowra/Yuin, New South Wales, that specialises in behaviour management and disability.
She is also a single parent of her nine-year-old daughter Grace.
Emma-Kate says she is entitled to four weeks' annual leave a year.
"The rest of the time is called 'student vacation time' so it's not actually our holidays," she says.
"It definitely is easier, but a lot of the holidays is still working, and I would come into school five out of the ten days of two-week holidays."
She says she relies heavily on her mkum's help during school holidays, or Grace goes into the office with her.
"Often she just has to come with me, with some activities that she can do in my office."
Emma-Kate banks her leave to use over the larger school holiday break at Christmas time.
"I try to have at least four weeks where I don't go into school during that time," she says.
But she is also now eligible for long-service leave, which she uses in snippets throughout the year.
"I find that [to be] quality time … when I take long service leave throughout the year," she says.
"I'm taking one week [of] long-service leave in August and we're going to the Great Barrier Reef."
Even if Theresa Windsor has enough annual leave to take time off over the school holidays, there's no guarantee the request can be approved in the police force.
"The thing that's hard in our job is we can't just automatically get school holidays off because we've always got to have rotational officers working," she says.
The police sergeant is an operational adviser on Turrbal lands in Brisbane, which often involves shift work. Her husband Steve is also a police officer.
She says it can make school holiday care arrangements for her two sons Kian, 13, and Airnin, 9, a "nightmare".
Instead of taking annual leave, Theresa "usually asks to work night shifts" over the break.
"If I do four to five nights' night work then I've got some days off at the end," she says.
She says her husband will usually take some annual leave during school holidays.
"Another thing I [can] do is nine-hour shifts, rather than eight-hour, just to help give me an extra day or two off a roster," she says.
"So that's another thing they've introduced at our office, not all stations can do it.
"Thank God we can do that, that really helps."
The banked annual leave means the family can usually take a few weeks off together in January each year.