Should I refuse reception settling in days if I can?

As far as I’m aware the school are required to take children full time from day 1 if that’s what parents want. If they’ve set up their first few days in a way that a parent requesting this would be an issue for another child, that is on the school to sort out.

My DD started full time from day 1 (incl after school clubs) and she coped fine (and is the youngest in her year) - she just accepted it as normal I think as it's what big sis was doing.

You can afford them now though? I think you should consider putting him in nursery an extra month

You mentioned a husband, can he not take time off? There's a lot of "I" and not much "we"

I have no leave left
I can't afford childcare
Etc.

Widely known if you're on Mumsnet as this thread appears every year! 😆

Childminder or nursery? I used nursery for some sessions, so did half day at school, then took them to nursery. Not many days but some. Then I found that school tired them out so much that were docile enough to watch tv, play a game quietly whilst I wfh.

we did half days for two weeks, I didn’t have that kind of annual leave left

Why didn't you save some A/L for this purpose? It's pretty widely known that pretty much all schools do this.

It's widely known that some schools do this. There are plenty who start full time from day one. The OP shouldn't have to save A/L to cover random half days, especially as staggered starts actually cause confusion and upset for many young children when starting school.

No one is saying staggered starts / settling in sessions shouldn't be available to children who need them, but the vast majorty of children cope better with the transition to school when they start full time from day one.

I did. My daughter had been in the school nursery full time for getting towards two years (since 30 hours kicked in). The preceding term they spent lots of time with the reception teacher and I had not been in my job for long enough to earn enough annual leave, and my holiday childcare couldn’t help. I said I’d find it very tricky to manage, and the teacher said it was fine, as long as she didn’t struggle with the transition. Term started on a Thursday so we agreed she would do two half days, then full time for the settling in full week. She was absolutely fine. The approach was suggested by the senior TA who worked a lot in the nursery so knew my girl.

You probably need to get used to how schools generally think women are all 1950s housewives who stay at home all day and have no problem dropping everything at the eleventh hour to attend various parent events during the day and help children with craft projects.

We were told by the school that our kids go / went to:-

“In our experience children settle best when they know what is happening. So we start all children full time at 8:40am on the first day of school and then they come to school every weekday from then on.”

It is bloody obvious really - no one is going to get settled going at all sorts of random times and then having to go to whatever childcare their parents have managed to cobble together.

It was also very useful to have saved my holiday for that first October half term when they were shattered.

Why would it be at the detriment of the class? I used to teach foundation and all my kids came in full time on day one.

Parents don't need to use annual leave just because someone has randomly decided their child should do half days which in my opinion is more detrimental than full time from the start.

Yes, obviously from this year, but the OP's child is in (presumably all year round) nursery until September.

You need your annual leave to cover school holidays.

Why didn't you book some for the first two weeks of school?

Take parental leave you can both take a week book it now though as they can refuse the week you ask for

Why didn't you save some A/L for this purpose? It's pretty widely known that most schools do this.

Another reason schools do it is for the teachers to get to know the children a bit better individually in a smaller group (ie most schools do half the class in the morning and half the class in the afternoon).

It's all very well saying the OP has the right to insist on full-time hours straight away, but if everyone did that, it would be to the detriment of the whole class.

That's what I meant by challenging it.

My first ever thanks. Short days were of zero benefit to my DC. First had undiagnosed ASD and having to go alone to a brand new CM, then return to school for 3.15 was really disruptive. DC2 couldn’t understand why she was coming home earlier than her sister.

If this was really beneficial there would be consistency between schools, and they would be able to explain with evidence what the benefits are. They can’t because there isn’t any.

I’m all for shorter days at the start for those who request it.

You don’t have to challenge it. You email the school advising them that you will be sending your child full time from the first day of school.

I'm sure some parents must of, its such a long drawn out process, the local primary they go full time from day one.

Another one calling BS on the phased transitions.

When DD started reception a phased start was available and recommended, but it was optional. We chose not to do that and found we were actually in the majority by doing this.

We had put childcare plans in place for before and after school and had planned holiday care. But beggaring about with half days here and there for the first half term would have been massively disruptive.

In any case, DDs days actually got shorter when she started school. Before then I did 30 hours a week over four full days so she was in nursery from about 8:30 until 18:00. When she started school I changed to do 30 hours over 5 shorter days, taking her to school myself then finishing work at 16:30 to collect her from after school club. Hence, she was in school from 9:00 until 17:00, about 1.5 hours a day less than nursery. No problem going full time straight away.