I have a son who is 3 years and 3 months and he currently goes to a childminder two days a week and has done since I returned to work when he was 10 months old.
He had a 6 month spate at a nursery about 9 months ago but it got closed down so he went back to a childminder.
He is due to start school next year so I said to my DH I would like to transfer DS into pre-school now so he can be there for 12 months before starting school to get used to the settings and also so he will be mixing with the children he will be going to school with as opposed to going straight from a childminder to a school classroom.
Our local pre-school has no spaces so we have applied for him to start at another one, still pretty local, within the next few months. The only downside is that the start times will cause problems with DH getting to work on time but we've been looking at possible solutions.
However, yesterday I was informed that although the pre-school will take DS he will most likely not get a place at their adjoining infants school because they are not our 'local' school and we are on the very edge of their catchment area.
This is fine, I understand how it works and it just means that when we apply for school places we will put out first choice down as our local Infant school and not the one attached to the pre-school he'll be attending. However, that of course defeats the purpose of sending him to pre-school in order to let him get to know the children he'll be going to school with.....because he won't be going to school with these children.
So now my dilemma is, if that reasoning behind pre-school is no longer viable should I just keep him at his childminders house? Do I really want to take him out his current setting, put him in pre-school and him have to deal with that change for him then to be taken out of that familiar environment and put in a classroom in a school where he has to start from scratch again in terms of getting to know people?
My DH said we just leave him with the childminder until he starts school (especially as it fits around our life better) but then I don't know if that's the best option either?
Really interested in other people's opinions and what their children did in the lead up to school....
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Is pre-school necessary?
50 replies
Writerwannabe83 · 21/06/2017 15:26
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