Nursery/reception class combined- good idea or bad idea

[alicemama]

DD1 is now in nursery and her school have decided to combine the nursery and reception age children into one big class. They're callng it a 3-5 foundation unit.
They say it will benefit all of the children and the older children will still be taught at the right level despite being in the same group as the nursery children.
I've been talking to other mums at the nursery and nobody can see how this will work.
First the reception age children will only have 30mins a day alone from the nursery to be taught, but how much can they be taught in 30 mins a day?
Secondly by the time dd1 is ready to leave reception, she'll have been in the same group with the same teachers for over 2 years. Its going to be really hard to move from a nursery environment into a classroom with diff teachers after 2 yrs of being settled in nursery/reception.

Has anybody had any experience if such a unit, can it work?

[threebob]

Children don't start school in NZ until 5, so our preschool rooms would be similar, they would have the same teachers for 2 years (well they would if the turnover wasn't so high).

[Skribble]

No personal experience but doesn't sound to bad. My DD started nursey at 3 so had 2 years with he same lot anyway. It will be more like kindergarten that most other european countries go for.

DOn't worry they will get more than 30 mins teaching, the whole day will be a learning experience and the teachers will expect different outcomes from the reception children.

Usually within the nursery the children break off into different groups for different activities to plenty chance to get the more advanced stuff done.

Sounds like it could be a good solid start to school life.

[Skribble]

Meant to add, get a meeting with the head and teachers and ask how exactly it would work and how exactly the different age groups will get through all the curiculm work.

[alicemama]

We had a meeting on weds night and they explained a typical school day where they'll break off into seperate groups and then come together at the end of the session to discuss what they've all been doing.
Then when the morning nursery children have gone home the reception will have 30mins teaching time on their own.
But I'm still not convinced, nor are a lot of other parents

[JILS]

As a teacher of almost 13 years (infants and juniors), I would struggle with this personally. I can see that it would be good to let the children have free play together, but as for teaching core skills (phonics, etc), I think it would be difficult. For one thing, it would be quite noisy. I wouldn't expect 3 year olds to be able to be quiet for an extended period of time, but I would expect that from most 5 year olds. How many teachers will there be? In Primary 1 (Scottish equivalent of Reception class), we usually have one teacher, a classroom assistant for a significant amount of time each week, and a support for learning teacher (P/T). She/he can work with children who need a bit of extra support or with children who need to be "stretched". We often also have a student nursery nurse for a couple of days a week. This isn't just a way of your LA cutting down on manpower, is it? Or removing the need for a qualified teacher (who gets paid more than a nursery nurse?)

[alicemama]

I'll think they'll be about 5 or 6 teachers ot nursery nurses/teaching assistants for the group.
Quite a few schools in the area have done this as well but don't know anybody else whose child has been in such a class to find out if it works.

[Tommy]

I would think that this is a good idea from my DS's experience. He is just coming to the end of nursery but is already reading, writing, and doing year 1 maths apparently. There are plenty of children in reception who aren't doing those things so I think to put the two classes together would have beenn ideal for him.
At this age, their development is so different I'm sure they could only benefit from something like this.

[alicemama]

How much reading & writing has your ds done?
dd1 hasn't done any yet!

[threebob]

I would worry the other way - that the 3 year olds are being pushed into real school another year younger.

[tissy]

In my dd's upcoming Primary 1 class they are going to make it more like nursery, apparently.
Can't remember all the detail, but apparently young children really don't do "sitting still and learning" well at all. Dd's class is going to focus on "kinetic learning" or something, which involves a lot of moving around! (Perhaps JILS can expand on this?). We've been told not to expect any reading books for at least the first term or two. Apparently kids taught this way are at least as good as their peers on the National Assessments.

[Tommy]

alicemama - DS1 doesn't really get "taught" reading and writing as such but he likes doing it so does it in their "choose what to do" time. The maths thing came up because they did an assessment to go into his profile for Reception.
I would think that it allows the children to continue at their own pace a bit more IYSWIM although I appreciate threebob's comment about pushing 3 year olds into school too soon.

[badgerhead]

I can see why you have concerens but what you need to understand that until the end of Reception year all children are working under the Foundation Stage guidelines & they do not move onto Key Stage 1 until year 1. The aim of the Foundation Stage is learning through play & most good reception classes follow this principle & probably don't start introducing Key Stage 1 principles until the end of the school year & this could be done in a combined class because of the nature of the groups they do activities & learning in. Your dd should not suffer through this & will benefit from the continuity of staff rather than having to get used to a new Teacher & different environment at a young age. I am sure that the school will handle any problems as they arise & if you feel that there are any particular concerns don't hesitate to contact them for an informal chat to start without being too antagnoistic.