When does your reception child start school?- settling in overkill?

[OnlyFoolsnMothers]

My nearly 4 year old is starting school in September and we have just received her start dates (“s”- plural)… 1 meet the teacher session one day- 20mins- 2 stay and play sessions the following wk (diff days each an hr), 2 staggered start days, she won’t start officially until the 19th. Whilst I appreciate some children might be apprehensive, this seems a tad overkill (what do working parents do- I’m on leave at present)….is this normal? Surely it’s more unsettling surely to stop and start.

Hi yeah in exactly the same boat. Ours goes on for 3 weeks and breakfast/after school club is off limits at the because of covid bubbles. Started a thread over on primary education about it. It really is a complete nightmare for working parents. Have you got help?

We're in the process of doing 2 x one hour stay and plays, a week apart, then a 2 hr leave the child session. Then in Sept 2 half days, with the teacher coming to the house after one of them?!

Luckily I'm wfh and can flex, otherwise I don't think I'd be able to do them all! As it is I'm going to have to take a week's hol the first week in Sept, which is a pain.

DD currently does nursery 8-5 so no problems with school being a long day etc.

Ridiculous.

Our school was great - whole class split into A and B.
Monday - A in 9.30-2.30 (so they miss the rush of other classes starting and finishing)
Tuesday - B as per Monday
Wednesday - A full day
Thursday - B full day
Friday - AB full day

Crack on

Legally you have the right to a full time place from the first day of term. You can talk to the school about what that might look like for your child but if you insist, they have to provide the place.

I’m fortunate as on Mat leave- otherwise I’d have to negotiate a work from home/ half days leave- seems pointless, surely most kids have experienced nursery and this isn’t their first time away from home. Also kind of takes the shine off their first day of school.

@RNBrie

Legally you have the right to a full time place from the first day of term. You can talk to the school about what that might look like for your child but if you insist, they have to provide the place.

Yeh don’t fancy being the trouble maker parent straight out the gate

@Faranth

We're in the process of doing 2 x one hour stay and plays, a week apart, then a 2 hr leave the child session. Then in Sept 2 half days, with the teacher coming to the house after one of them?!

Luckily I'm wfh and can flex, otherwise I don't think I'd be able to do them all! As it is I'm going to have to take a week's hol the first week in Sept, which is a pain.

DD currently does nursery 8-5 so no problems with school being a long day etc.

Comes to the house? Why??? During covid I bet the teachers love this initiative

Faranth I'm sorry, what?! A teacher is going to come home with your child?! What is that all about? And how are there enough teachers to manage to send one with each child? Bonkers!

Yeah they'll do that, then later in the year if your DD is off sick for 3 days they'll send a crappy letter about attendance statistics.

19th of sept as well before a full 9-3 day

Teachers doing home visits was very common pre covid

Consider yourself lucky OP. Mine doesn’t start full time until 27th. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing yet. He’ll probably be watching a hell of a lot of Netflix while I try to work. Which is obviously better than being in school 🙄

We had 3 weeks of this last year. First week we went for an hour. Second week they did 9-11, third week 1-3, then finally in full time. It was ridiculous. They claimed it was because they needed time to assess all the kids abilities but they still had no idea my child could read after nearly a term. Thankfully our nursery agreed to do the wraparound for those weeks

Ours start the 13th Sept full time. The week before the teacher is doing house visits to see the child. We had a stay and play a couple of weeks ago.

Its a bit rubbish as she has been in full time nursery (8-5) so going for shorter hours will be weird.

Start 6th September with the rest of the school full days, start as they will carry on is the opinion of the head. She has said she is quite happy if there are children who do need more settling (half days, every other day) but thankfully straight in to the new normal routine for most.

To clarify, term starts on 2nd September. First two days are insets, so no children in til w/c 6th. For the first week Reception are not in at all, the teacher spends that week doing home visits. There are 22 children in the class…. Then the week after, and the week after that, hey go in for 2 and a half days - we have the choice of Mon/Tues/Wed am or Wed pm/Thurs/Fri. Then finally they start full time on 27th.

LOL, think we get this thread every year. At DC's primary they did staggered settling-in days so kids got 3-6 weeks of half days, which I found overkill as both of mine had been in nursery 3-5 days a week before school, although appreciate some kids will not have had that. DD had about 4 weeks of this, but as it happened I was out of work at the time so could manage it. DS luckily only had 3 weeks (as I was back at work then) and the nursery arranged handover for a small daily feel in that time.

"with the teacher coming to the house after one of them?!".

I think quick home visits are quite normal these days. Both of mine had one ten or so years ago.

3 half days, then full time on the 14th. I'm ok with this, any more would have been a bit unnecessary.

Many do go in for overkill. Ours thankfully are very straight forward. This year the other years start on Thursday 2nd September and then the reception year starts on Monday 6th with half the year in for a full morning and lunch. Then the other half the year go in on the Tuesday and then everyone starts full time from Wednesday. They do give you the option to do half days if you want until October half term I think but i don't think there is much take up.

Home visits are very normal, or at least were pre-Covid

We have these at our school but they are in May/June/July. Teachers didn’t do home visits (though I know some places they do - seems mad to me, we definitely didn’t do that when I started school). But when school starts, thank god, it’s full days straight away from day 1, same as it was when I started school.

Fwiw, mine was in nursery 9-5 5 days before school and actually found the days too short to start. She was bored and bouncing off the wall coming home at 3.

DS had one outdoor stay-and-play session already, and we've had a Zoom call with his teacher (used to be a home visit pre-Covid). Then starts Mon 6th Sept mornings only for a week, with half the class, while the other half does afternoons. Full time from 13th Sept, thank goodness!

Oh god, this is ridiculous - I really feel for you, why do schools do this.
My youngest starts in September and I don't know what I do if we weren't straight into a normal school day

The hr stay and play I think is the most useless, my child will barely have picked up a toy before it’s “home time”