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Original poster

Bloody bloody half days for reception kids

400 replies

Icylightning · 28/07/2019 11:08

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

OP posts:
PancakeAndKeith · 30/07/2019 09:54

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

Not when the child isn’t compulsory school age.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 30/07/2019 09:55

Just start them all fall time then and give parents the opt out of planning is your issue, family. You seem to be trying to make this much more difficult than it needs to be.

I doubt it impacts the majority of school’s budgets at all.

CallmeAngelina · 30/07/2019 10:03

So people are suggesting that to insist a child is left for full days at school, whilst everyone else goes home at lunchtime, is the way to go? At the very best, they will be loosely supervised doing something probably quite dull whilst the staff get on with their other duties. Whose benefit is that for? The child's? Or the parent who wants to go to work instead?
Pretty poor parenting decision in my view.

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Childcare & nursery Families General education Primary education
FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 10:07

Just start them all fall time then and give parents the opt out of planning is your issue, family. You seem to be trying to make this much more difficult than it needs to be.

No, I’m trying to work out how you would factor something into a school’s budget in April that may or may not be a cost in September and, more important, how you would persuade anyone to apply for a job when it’s not certain there would even be a job for them in September.

I think the reason schools don’t start everyone full time is because, in their experience, staggered starts work better for the majority. As has been extensively discussed upthread, I’m not sure what “better” means in this context as I’m not teaching staff.

But maybe the way forward is to have all children starting full-time with an opt-out for those who want it. Though no doubt you’d then get people saying it’s unfair because their child isn’t ready for full-time school but is missing out on teaching time given to full timers ...

SlinkyDogDash · 30/07/2019 10:13

Yanbu. I think schools should give parents the option to allow their dc to start reception part time for a couple of weeks if they think it would be beneficial. I know my dc has no need for half days - she has attended the school nursery full time for over two years already! She is only going into the next class.

The delayed start seems to be more about allowing the teachers time for home visits, not for the children imo.

Borisdaspide · 30/07/2019 10:18

@FamilyOfAliens you keep insisting OP must have known about this. What if she didnt? I said it up thread but I had no idea schools did staggered starts until very recently, because it didn't happen at my school, or any of the schools my family started at. Schools seem to expect reception parents to be mind-readers.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 30/07/2019 10:18

Honestly, it won’t. Most parents will factor that into their decision making, and it’ll only be for a few weeks anyway. Usually the few weeks where lots of settling & observations/ assessment are going on anyway.

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 10:25

FamilyOfAliens you keep insisting OP must have known about this. What if she didnt ?

I’m basing it on the fact that the OP has 4 children and sounds very organised. Plus she posted this upthread:

DD is my 4th DC. Childcare is not something new to me or something I don’t think about. I have a whole spreadsheet dedicated to it. I’m well aware of how schools work.

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 10:26

Honestly, it won’t.

And yet you have posters on here saying staggered starts amount to an illegal exclusion?

MoltoAgitato · 30/07/2019 10:27

Family it WILL be a cost in September, staggered start or not! Stop trying to imply that there is a financial aspect to this. Like it or not, a school is legally obliged to take them full time from day 1. Any school that doesn't plan to do so and staff accordingly is demonstrating some fairly inept management, let alone this idea that they'll be left to their own devices whilst everyone else goes home - if the school thinks that they don't have to provide anything decent with regards to provision then you have bigger problems with your school than staggered starts.

Furthermore, school budgets are set from the October census numbers, so the funding the school receives for most of a child's reception year has nothing to do with the numbers in that cohort.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 30/07/2019 10:28

IME full time works better for the majority. And settling takes less time. Long, protracted settling sessions seem to extend the amount of time it takes a little of children to settle. Especially if schools are doing things like random days and odd mixtures of am and pm.

I’ve got a feeling that most schools still offering staggered starts do so because it’s what they’ve always done rather than it actually benefiting the children.

Borisdaspide · 30/07/2019 10:31

Ok, well more generally then, why aren't schools making a big song and dance of this, or just putting it on the website instead of leaving it until post-allocation? For those of us who had no idea this was a possibility, leaving some people scrabbling for messy bits of childcare- like me looking after a friends DC in the week my own child starts school!

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 10:34

Family it WILL be a cost in September, staggered start or not! Stop trying to imply that there is a financial aspect to this.

No need to get upset about it. I’m just wondering how it would work if you need to employ and fund a staff member to cover possible requests for full-time and then no-one requests it.

HarveySchlumpfenburger · 30/07/2019 10:40

I suspect, because some schools are extremely poor at communication and haven’t really
thought it through, Boris.

In some schools it might be because they know they’re not supposed to be doing it. I know our LA has (and possibly does wvery year) send out information to schools about it. I can’t imagine any school that still has a compulsory extended settling in period would want to advertise it on their website.

Skyejuly · 30/07/2019 10:42

Blimey my eldest 2 did have days until APRIL. That was standard then! It IS best for children to be staggered slightly.

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 10:50

In some schools it might be because they know they’re not supposed to be doing it.

Is that what the Admissions Code says? I thought it just said schools must accede to a parent request for full time from day one in reception, not that staggered starts are not permitted.

YetAnotherThing · 30/07/2019 10:53

Apparently when I started school, if you were born in first 6 months of school year, you started in September with half days until half term, and those born in last 6 months waited until Jan to start, again with half days until half term. So basically half school year until all we’re full time. It was an era with majority SAHM.

DaisyChains6 · 30/07/2019 11:01

Wouldn't it be easier to start them all full time with an option to do half days for a period of time if you feel your child needs that?

Most children are ready for full time, especially those approaching 5 in the first term so why make them all do half days for the minority who would prefer half days?

woodhill · 30/07/2019 11:23

I'm coming to the conclusion that you are better off taking a cheaper later September holiday for a fortnight if you are a dp working with the eldest dc just going into receptionSmile

woodhill · 30/07/2019 11:23

Then you are not forfeiting all your holiday leave

isabellerossignol · 30/07/2019 11:32

People keep mentioning home visits as a reason for staggered starts. That's not a thing where I live (thankfully. I'd be politely declining a home visit if it was suggested) but surely if parents are at work (which is the whole reason people don't like staggered starts) then they're not at home for a home visit?

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 11:38

Our home visits aren’t mandatory but we only had one parent declining last year. Not sure yet about this year.

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 11:50

I'm coming to the conclusion that you are better off taking a cheaper later September holiday for a fortnight if you are a dp working with the eldest dc just going into reception

That’s an idea. Though we have 21 siblings starting in reception this year so unless you wanted the siblings to start the year with an unauthorised absence, it wouldn’t work for ours!

woodhill · 30/07/2019 11:59

I meant the under 5s if there were no older siblings?

I thought UA only applied to 5 years upwards?

FamilyOfAliens · 30/07/2019 12:21

Yes it would work if there were no older siblings. I meant it wouldn’t work with our new starters because 21 of them are siblings of children already at the school.