Bloody bloody half days for reception kids

[Icylightning]

Why?!! WHY?!!

Don’t the school realise what a nightmare this is for working parents, I’m a single working parent so it’s even worse. TWO weeks of half days. To ease the children into full days apparently. DD has been doing 5 full days at nursery for 18 mths. Longer hours than she will be doing in school.

I’m using most of my annual leave in the holidays but now need to ask for two weeks of leaving at lunch time ffs. I thought they couldn’t do this anymore?!

Her nursery won’t take her back for those two weeks and is nowhere near her school either. Bloody nightmare

Or they could just do the sensible thing and instead of demanding staggered starts, offer flexibility to all parents. As many schools are perfectly able to do.

We don’t “demand” staggered starts, what a strange way of phrasing it.

What I’m wondering is how a school prepares for the possibility that parents might decide, as the OP has, six months after accepting a place and knowing about staggered starts, that they want full-time from day one.

We’d have to have a funded member of staff ready for that eventuality, who may or may not be required on day one to teach an unspecified number of children with unknown needs. If no parent decides they want full-time from day one, that member of staff wouldn’t have a job. In our school, we don’t have spare staff knocking around to step in at the last minute for this.

I think Vasha has the solution. The staggered start Is outdated with most women working and the schools may need to take this into consideration.

How does it work at your school at the moment Family? Do staff go back PT in September?

The staggered start Is outdated with most women working and the schools may need to take this into consideration.

I think that would work if schools based their teaching and learning decisions on what works best for parents. But they should be making those decisions based on what works best for the children, in their view.

How does it work at your school at the moment Family? Do staff go back PT in September?

Which staff are you talking about? Part-time staff go back part-time. Full-time staff go back full-time.

Ooh nowadays more dc are in nursery doing full days from a young age so the dc are used to being away from home so surely the system needs reviewing.

Come to Scotland. We scrapped 1/2 days
This depends on the school, possibly on the council area. We had half days, but only for first week which was manageable. In fact, with a childminder anyway I didn't notice much difference, just paid more that week. We also have an earlier finish for the first two years, only by around 20 mins though.

Just request your child starts full time. School will have to work around it.

Once one parent does it, lots will probably follow you!

Half days with lots of coming and going and new, temporary, cobbled together childcare solutions at a time of already big change for a 4 year old is not in a child's best interests.

Nurseries do wraparound care for up to 5 yo where I live.

Just request your child starts full time. School will have to work around it.

As I’ve posted upthread, they may not be able to accommodate that request but of course if it’s law that school must provide cover for the whole day, even just for one child, then schools will have to, and will just have to fund it from somewhere else in the school budget.

I’m so confused! Presumably there are enough full-time staff for when the staggered start finishes? So what are they doing during the staggered start? Not trying to be goady, just genuinely interested how other schools manage it. Our EYFS staff are full-time across the year.

My sons pre school offered afternoons for children who were doing mornings in reception for two weeks. His pre school was right next though so it could work.

However, after a few days my son refused to go to the pre school because in his mind he was now a "big school boy" and not a baby anymore so didn't want to back a stage. The transition was done with a pre school leavers assembly in july etc so I think it confused him.

I’m confused too, but if your question is, what do the full-time staff do when the new starters aren’t in school, it’s any number of things.

Home visits are all carried in during the staggered start weeks, reception staff cover PPA for other staff, they teach other classes (our reception teacher is the PE curriculum lead), interventions for our nursery children, training ... they’re definitely not kicking back and relaxing till the next time the new starters are in!

My dd is starting reception in September. For the whole first week of school, reception does not attend at all. Luckily her nursery had agreed to take her for the week.

Second week is half days only. We're very fortunate that dp's work is flexible so he can work around her for that week.

I'd assumed all schools were like this. Must be a nightmare for many working parents.

We lived in East Germany when DD was starting primary school.

Primary schools finish at 2pm. If you wanted afternoon provision you had to pay for “schulhort”, which was basically an after-school club.

We’re very lucky with what we get for free in our school system.

Family they won't have to fund it from somewhere else in their budget, they're paid to do it already!

When dd started one mum told the school her dd would be staying full days from the first day, no option, apparently the law says that you can do that

There is so much you can do in an EYFS setting without children there.
Or EYFS staff might well be running interventions, supporting year one, that kind of thing.
Don’t worry, they won’t be sat there twiddling their thumbs.

Thinking about it a bit laterally. A school insisting on a staggered start is effectively an illegal exclusion for the child.

ps Just because the teachers can be doing other useful stuff, doesn't give the school an 'out' with respect to them not doing what they are meant to be doing which is allowing the reception children to be in school full time, just like any other child.

@FamilyOfAliens same in Ireland school finishes earlier and childminders or other childcare services take over of parents/gp’s etc cannot collect the children.
School times in Ireland vary also. They can be:
8.40-2.20 ( and 1.20 for the first two years)
8.50-2.30 (1.30)
9.00-2.40 (1.40)
9.10-2.50 (1.50)
9.20-3.00 (2.00)
Depending on the school.

Family they won't have to fund it from somewhere else in their budget, they're paid to do it already!

They’re not paid to look after children who are staying full-time after the other children go home.

Everyone’s timetable is set for next year. If we need to move someone from another time to look after children who are full-time from day one, we will need to fund someone to do the job they’ve been moved from.

If we put something in the budget to fund the possibility that some parents may request full-time but no-one asks that year, that person will not be employed because there will not be a role for them.

That sounds a nightmare, youngandfree.

The reason we didn’t move to Switzerland after Germany was because of similar crazy pick-up times that would have made it impossible for me to work. Even different classes in the same school finish at different times and with two DC, that was a non-starter for us.

At my children's school, they stagger them in over a 2 week period starting with 3 half days. So if your child is staggered in on the back end of 2nd week then 2 weeks of childcare would need to be sorted.

My youngest, although he attended preschool, he does have social anxiety so the settle in days were perfect for his situation. Not too many kids all at once.

Not sure on the laws regarding this but if school won't budge and if they are within their rights you will just have to grin and bear it afterall, you will need to find somewhere in the school holidays. Perhaps you could source a local childminder for a couple of weeks.

We have a local childminder who actually advertises her services for this particular scenario.

Just to add, I really don't think the school would have looked into parents occupations and thought there is a lot of SAHM lets do 2 weeks of half days.

teentimestwo

It’s not an “out”. It’s what is their timetable. We don’t have the budget to factor dead space into teachers’ timetables on the off-chance a parent decides a month before we go back that they want full-time provision.

@FamilyOfAliens it can be messy 🤣 I know ppl who have 3 children very close together so they have 3 pick ups, 12 o clock for preschool, 1.20 for child in the infant class and then 2.20 for the older child 🙈