We do childminder after school, who is amazing but the cost of full-time childminding over holidays is too much. We're offering daughter some visits to grandparents but at 7 she might be a little bit young for that. Also a bit of husband not taking work (he's a freelancer), scamps, there's a summer camp at Gumboots, also Beckenham Spa which we're looking at. The thing I find hardest is fitting in with start/finish times - we're splitting a couple of days with friends so one will take all kids to scamps so the other can go to work early and then the other will finish work early and pick them all up. School works as husband drops daughter and i pick her up from childminder, but if the club only runs 9-4 as many do that's not that helpful... SB - yes, you will need some sort of childcare with school unless you can work the drop off between you/husband? The upside is that - summer hols notwithstanding - childcare is suddenly much cheaper when they're at school, and I think quite a lot of childminders do the before/after school thing.