To think primary transition days aren’t much help if you work?

I agree. I’m in NI and it’s an absolute nightmare here. Our local school doesn’t have P1s in for the full day until the week before Halloween! It’s ridiculous and so hard to manage as a working parent. We don’t all have capable grandparents on hand to fill in, we are just expected to keep paying a local nursery for wraparound care which is so expensive! A full day is still only 9-2 in NI.

If it’s a small school, can you find out some names and do some summer play dates? I invited about 5 kids and parents I could find beforehand and everyone was delighted to meet which might help your child have some familiar faces?

Unless some of the kids meet up in the holidays, none of them will particularly remember each other from the 3 sessions they did in June. So I wouldn’t worry about that. If you can get your child to one of the sessions, he’ll be familiar enough with the set up.

Moving forwards - and I’m sure as a teacher you’re aware of this - you need to work hard to make contacts with other parents. Obviously this is nice from a social perspective, but it is also essential for working parents to make their lives manageable. I had a good network of primary school parent friends, and we all helped each other out with child care at times. You need someone you can call on if you’re stuck in traffic at pick up time, or to take photos for you at the sports day you can’t get to, or to collect your poorly child while you try and get out of work.

As a teacher there are pros and cons. You won’t have any of the holiday child care nightmares that the rest of us have, but it’ll be the term time stuff that is much harder, when us non teachers can book annual leave.

Depends how long it lasts. If it’s 2-3 days YABU if longer YANBU

Appreciate it is difficult to manage but I do think it is useful for many children who may be apprehensive over starting. Seeing the classroom and meeting the teacher will be very helpful.

It is difficult for parents if they cant get time off though, I think you are unlucky both you and dh cant take any time off. I am sure you can give plenty of support to your child and if they have to miss the visits it won't impact them too much.

The Admissions Code 2021 makes it clear that you are entitled to full-time education from day one. The school can't force part-time transition days. They probably don't realise the Code has changed. It's enshrined in law.

OP you're lucky it's just 3 days in your school, it was spread over 2 weeks in my DSs school. The kids were doing shorter days than at the school nursery lots of them had gone to.

As so many schools have different 'settling in' periods, I don't think it's based on any evidence of what's best for the kids. It's a nice soft start to the year for the teachers though.

Not the point of the thread but I do feel awfully sorry for teachers, they have long hours, a huge responsibility of caring for and educating our children and yes while I appreciate it’s best for them to be consistently in the classroom it’s awful they can’t be there for their own kids (school plays, mum lunches, sports days etc) and many they should get something like 5 days annual leave to use for these events and work 5 days of the school hols in their classrooms?

I'm surprised that people are saying transition days are normal in reception; at my school the children come in for a couple of visits, but only for an hour or two (not exactly sure because I work in year 6). What do they do with the current reception children during those days?

Please don’t feel badly - the children will often barely remember it by the time school starts and you can only do what you can do. This is just the start of the juggling so please try to be kind to yourself - there will be other things you miss every year too but you can’t do everything.

It sounds like they’re doing quite a few transition days, so I would just take him to the ones you can do and not worry too much about the other ones. I’d be surprised if all the parents can make all of the dates, there’s bound to be some that can’t due to work commitments, holidays, kids being ill etc.

Are they doing the entire class on each transition day? Ours are split into groups of 10 and on different days. If that’s the same for you then you could ask to switch? If not, just do the days you can do.

In the school my dcs went to there was also a different finish time between junior cycle students and senior cycle for TWO years and limited afterschool places , yup….
My kids are older and we don’t need any afterschool childcare really. I equate this attitude (I saw this a lot as a teacher ) with the Covid attitude of keep schools closed for a long as possible and it’s the same types shouting this out who go on about how schools aren’t childcare.
I know plenty of my friends who have smaller kids who for years after Covid had to constantly pick up children from nursery for the slightest sniffle , honestly making life very difficult for working parents (nightmare for one with no support or willing family to help) has been the theme over the past few years .. it’s an absolute miracle my dh and I still have our jobs…

On this post - yes, as a working parent, it is massively complicated although many schools do indeed have much more difficult arrangements (like the two weeks of half days). I don’t think it gets easier for a while though.

Knowing you wouldn't be able to manage the transition days why didn't your husband make sure he was free?

I don't think you need to worry about the bonding part. Most children of that age will still play with a child they've not met before.
I don't know how useful these taster days are. My son either cried or stood by the door for his entire settle sessions (he does have severe SEN). He also screamed on his first two days and it took 3 staff members to get him in to school. After that he was fine. So basically the taster days were zero help to him.
So really if your child can't do them, he can't do them. I'm pretty sure he won't be the only one.

Personally I think they are pointless. Most children in my son’s year had been at nursery or pre school for at least two years before reception. I say better to just get on with it and get the children used to it.

My kids school just went straight to full days, including wrap around hours if you needed it. All transition activities were on the weekend except for a family activity the day before school started. It is private but I was still surprised that they used the weekends.

Both my kids were fine going straight to full days and they didn’t even go to nursery full time, only a couple of days a week.

I think they’re pointless and awful for working parents who don’t have grandma on the doorstep to help out! Most kids go to nursery these days, and for longer days than they will be in reception!

Primary school absolutely is childcare. Yes, it's not the main thing but anyone who claims otherwise is talking nonsense.

The smugness with which people go on about “school isn’t childcare” stuns me. People like you are the reason we are all choosing to have kids later or not at all, and there won’t be anyone to pay your pensions.

@Transitiondays I also think there’s prob some teachers on here berating you and it’s so so cringe how transparent it is. They may have support , older kids, no kids. One pp said they were “stunned” that people could consider it childcare , it isn’t but it does mean while they are in school I can work as having no helpful family it would be very tricky to actually work and keep a roof over our heads if I didn’t work the hours they are in school….

Op I am also a teacher and one with 4 dcs and zero family support. I honestly think some people really can’t understand what that’s like when they have support themselves.
A lot of these posters are enjoying themselves berating you and that in itself is very grim. All the “it isn’t childcare”, no it isn’t, but a lot of parents do work during the time their kids are in school coincidentally 🤷‍♀️