10-minute window to drop kids at school - is this common?

[JackalOnassis]

Not a moan, just a general wondering. We have an infants (Reception, y1, y2) and juniors (y3+) school locally. At the Juniors you can drop them any time from about 8.30 in the playground.

At the Infants' the doors don't open until 8.50 and close at 9.00. So you need to wait with your child until you can "see them in". Minorly annoying, as however early I am, I can't get back to start work by 9am! (This is not actually a big problem).

Obviously you can pay for Breakfast Club if you need to drop earlier.

Just wondered how common this was?

At my school we have a free breakfast club from 8am but parents have to pre book. Our playground gates open at 8.40 as do our classroom doors, there is a member of staff on each of the gates and they are locked at 8.55, which is when the school day officially starts.
At the end of the day, the gates are opened at 2.55, school ends at 3.00

Being expected to supervise your kids until they go into school is normal, as is the school giving a 10 minute window before the kids go in where the staff will supervise in the playground so you don’t need to wait - so what you have is normal.

you’ve then asked a 2nd question of is the timing of the start of day (and therefore the 10 minutes before) is normal - most primary schools in the UK start their day between 8:40-8:50, some start as late as nine but that’s really uncommon. (I’ve never heard of a state primary starting at 8:30am.)So some will have the 10 minute supervision window starting at 8:30, some at 8:50, most around the 8:40 mark.

in towns with a lot of school close together or a lot of schools needing parents to use key routes to access them, the council often asks schools to stagger their start and finish times.

Infants school the doors opened at 8.50am and closed at 9.00am.

Junior school they lined up in the playground and marched into school with a teacher at 8.40am.

The junior school was right next to a park so an awful lot of children started arriving there from 8am (or even earlier onwards).

At juniors a lot of parents dropped and ran (or the children made their own way to school). At infants, they were obviously too young just to leave in the playground unsupervised. Working parents used breakfast club, or asked another parent to watch their child for a few minutes.

@toochesterdraws - that’s what breakfast clubs and childminders are for. Most schools do have breakfast clubs so you can drop off early if you’ve got to get to work.

You would have been paying for that longer supervision window as part of your fees, though.

Ours is 8.40-8.50 but such a small school that if you need to drop and run another parent will usually keep an eye on your child till you go in. Kids can't physically get to the classrooms before that as there's the yard, and then locked side gates to get round to where the classroom entrances are which aren't unlocked till on the dot (our caretaker used to work as a prison officer and is a master at wielding a bunch of keys with precision)

Breakfast club is 7.45-8.00 - however recently there've been a few days where roadworks have delayed DH getting ours to breakfast club to the point he's missed the 8.00 cutoff and had to fling a supermarket croissant at them and sit in the playground for 40 minutes which was just fecking ridiculous.

Another local school does 8.45 doors open for the infants, 9.00 for the juniors to allow you to walk between the two schools if you have siblings.

Half an hour on the playground? What if it’s pouring down or freezing cold???

@Soontobe60 - then you have the option to drop off at 8:30 and they can go straight inside? But in my experience so far, children are generally far less bothered than adults about a bit of rain/cold 🤷‍♀️

Our school it's 8-8.15 for breakfast club drop off (free) then 8.45-8.50 for normal day drop off. A 5 min window!

Had no idea some schools did free breakfast club!

What does this mean? What do you propose as an alternative?

When I have had to drop my kids earlier than gates open, I have paid for breakfast club or paid a childminder. (I found one who was also a school parent and who agreed to meet me at the gates 10 minutes before school started every morning).

School staff are very often parents too with their own responsibilities in the morning. And we need some time to set up and get ready for the day, have a wee, etc, without supervising children.

Every school I've known has something similar. Pity that there could not be more resources for schools to have a wider window, as it would allow those on the way to a place of work to be earlier. Could reduce traffic congestion, and allow people to avoid some of those in my opinion on the road who are unfit to drive or who attempt to drive an SUV and do so badly.

At our local primary school, the kids can go into the playground before school - no set times. But they remain the parent's responsibility. They all go into school when the bell rings.

There never has been school breakfast club at our school but there was a local one in town. Sadly no more though.

Parents or grandparents etc typically stay until p3/p4 age.

That's a typical set up when I am.

I'm not proposing an alternative. I am merely pointing out the ingrained sexism in the system itself which assumes that mums (and it nearly always is mums) are the ones who have to fit their lives around a 10 minute window as per the OP. There very often is an assumption that mums (but not dads) will be available for being a parent helper during the school day, or can just turn up at assemblies or whatever, because, you know, they are just housewives earning a bit of pin money so what does it matter if they have to rearrange their work?

and

I was partly wondering if others started earlier than 8.50/9, which it appears they do.

Yet your Opening post very much implies you find it strange, and inconvenient for you to start work on time.

If you would find it strange for it to be uncommon for there to be a 10 minute window , then why would you start a thread about it ?

Infant school - drop off between 8.30-8.45. School day starts at 8.45. Parents who need to drop earlier can pay a couple of £ for breakfast club from 8am. Very few children attend breakfast club. Around half of the parents dropping off are fathers.

What do you realistically think schools should do?

Re class assemblies, we had so many complaints about these being during the school day that we no longer run them. So everyone has lost out.

Unsurprisingly, school trips are during the school day. Additional adult help make these trips possible. Do you suggest I don't ask? In that case, most trips would not be able to happen either. Is this really a win?

I'm not proposing an alternative. I am merely pointing out the ingrained sexism in the system itself which assumes that mums (and it nearly always is mums) are the ones who have to fit their lives around a 10 minute window as per the OP.

What an odd thing to say. Firstly, it isn't always Mums - I've seen plenty of Dads drop and collect at school. But they don't "have to fit their lives around a 10 minute window". If you are not a SAHP, then you arrange childcare or yes, one of the parents arranges their work around school drop off and then school pick up if they are able to do that. Mostly though, working parents arrange their working hours / breaks etc around drop off time for Breakfast club or childminder or Nursery, which again, is at an agreed time. There is no sexism there, unless you choose to accept that in your marriage / partnership.

However, the time the school day starts has no sexism attached to it at all.