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

Parental leave can be requested but not necessarily approved for the time you’d like it and especially not for those working in a school like the OP.

EVERYONE - remember you can legally send your DC’s to school full time from day one without a staggered start.

It’s not in everyone’s best interests - parents and children- to do a staggered start

How are you intending to manage school full stop if organising some time off five months in advance is tricky?

Every parent knows this is how school starts. If your employer has no flexibility with annual leave you have a right to parental leave for things like this.

I agree OP. My DC starts school in September and will manage a full day as they are in preschool near full time now even on their first day was in 8-6 so I don't think they do need a phased start. It is hard to plan around with work especially after you've just navigated the summer holidays.

I completely agree OP. Mine had lunchtime finishes until October half term having been at nursery FT. It was just disorienting for them. I used to have to use my lunch hour to transport them from school back to nursery.

I sympathise - DH and I are both teachers and although our DC are well past this stage, things like this were hard to cover. See also, first day of school, things like sports day etc. Given the time of year and the fact your child is at nursery ordinarily, could you recruit a local Y11, Y13 or university student to help out with getting your DC to and from the half day sessions? There's time for your DC to get to know them before the visit days and although the hours may be a bit unusual for babysitting, it may offer a way forward. We did that sort of thing when ours were younger and now they are teenagers, our DC have done this sort of babysitting for others.

The OP works in a school and can’t just take annual leave.

Dd is a summer born who had been in childcare full time since 8 months old. The transition was a week at home with me on unpaid leave while the autumn and spring borns had their days, then a week of half days with me taking half day hols.

She was ready for school at start of term but regressed in those 2 weeks.🤨

Take annual leave? Which is for things like this?!?! It's far enough ahead that it can be sorted.

Yes. But it's still not childcare.

It’s quite usual for primary schools to have a staggered start for September for Reception children but I have never heard of multiple transition days in June/July. My DD school had 1 hour on a random Thursday in June when you dropped them off to play and meet their teacher. DS’s school had 1 hour after school where they could come over with parents and explore.

Tbh I wouldn’t worry about attending all the transistion days in June. If you could make one that would be great. I would say that September was much more important.

It's half a day because of school lunches, not especially for the children. Primary school transition day is only half a day in my school because the current cohort are still in school and will be returning to their regular classes in order to facilitate lunch times. Some of the Y6 children will be at their new secondary schools that day, but not all as all schools don't have transition days on the same day- we coordinate it so that ours is when the biggest group of Y6 children will be out. If we did a full day of transition it would be unfair on the Y6s to to be out of their classroom for a whole day, it would mean we had to accommodate the new reception children for lunch which wouldn't be posssible as lunch times are tightly run as it is.

Not to pile on when you're probably already stressed but we had a couple of transition mornings in July like you, and we were categorically not allowed to take siblings. Not sure if we'd have been kicked out or anything but it was made very clear they were not to be brought. Have you checked with his school you can bring your toddler?

Blimey. Ever heard of people who have different circumstances? By the time my eldest started primary 3 of her 4 grandparents were dead and the other lived 6 hours away and wouldn’t have been physically capable

My dc are 11 and 13 and I still remember the horror of accommodating the staggered start. For dd1, it was over THREE WEEKS. DH and I had no flexibility with work at the time and no help, so we took the whole 3 weeks as annual leave between us to cover it.

By the time, the staggered start was much reduced and only over a week, which is much more manageable.

Our school has completely stopped doing all these transition and half days as they say the kids settle in better without them. They said at the talk for parents that they’d found parents having a positive attitude much more important. They were seeing multiple adaptation phases each time the setup changed (now you stay the morning, now you stay for lunch, now you stay all day). So don’t feel bad if he can’t do them, I’m sure he’ll be fine.

Send them full time from day one as is the legal position. I’m surprised at how many parents don’t realise that you don’t need to accept staggered starts unless you want to

It was two weeks here. Including for a child who has done a year in the school nursery.

DH and I both work full time and our AL is for the school holidays and emergencies. It’s shit.

DC will be attending a public nursery, and they are managed by our council. I called up and asked for a start date while I'm still on maternity leave. DC won't be quite a year, yet, so they kindly got permission to start her early (they don't usually take them before they are 12 months). However, they are closed during the summer holidays and I'm a teacher (and single parent...yay), so we couldn't have done the settling in before I return to work otherwise.

However, other people use grandparents or other family to help with that. Colleagues of mine just had to be covered and someone else taught their lessons in that time. We've got very family-friendly laws here and the employer should help sort it, if there's an issue. My (independent) school is also usually very family-friendly and if such things can't be helped, then they can't be helped.
Unlike the OP, it wouldn't be an issue for me to request leave and have it granted.

Put toddler in the pram with snacks and a toy.
You will not be the first that has done it, and will not be the last - some mums don't have the child care, schools understand this more than most other setting.

Honestly they aren’t the be all end all, DSs school didn’t have anything transition wise, apart from a Teddy bears picnic which he couldn’t go too as we had an inspection in at work.
DD we didn’t find out her primary school until July before she started in Sept, as we’d moved areas.
Both were absolutely fine. DD knew zero children and had no issues at all.

it’s the long transitions in Sept that are ridiculous, for DS it was TWO whole weeks or either AM or PM sessions…: thankfully for DD it was one day…..