Starting primary - settling in

[welshycake]

My child has two afternoon sessions in their first week. That's it.

Then it just builds up from there to include lunch and longer days.

They aren't fully at school for the whole school day until week 4.

Is that normal?

To all those parents being a bit bolshy about it "not being legal", schools do only do this for the good of your child, you know. It's not like nursery where babies and toddlers start at different times all year round. Having 30 brand new children start brand new routines with a brand new teacher, in a brand new environment - all at the same time - can be VERY difficult for little ones to cope with. If a couple are crying this can often spread quickly to others and the teacher can't give their individual attention to every crying child at the same time. It takes time for the teacher to get to know each and every child and the best way to deal with them when they get upset as all children are different.

It's quite hard to do this when there are 30 in all at once, and some with obvious additional needs or behavioural issues which parents kept quiet about on the application form. Then there are the ones who aren't yet potty trained and who need cleaning up after an accident.

Try to imagine a Reception school classroom at the beginning of September with 30 children in from day 1. It's easy to imagine - have you ever hosted a kids' party? Now imagine that party with 30 kids, who you don't know, don't even know the names of, and doing it on your own or with maybe just 1 other helper? Not only that but the party is 6 hours long, and you're not able to call the parents to come back early if they child is crying and various children are wetting themselves or spilling food down themselves. A few are being naughty, not listening to a word you're saying. Others are screaming as they're non-verbal or have suspected ASD and they can't cope with it all. Maybe one is shoving someone, and another one is hitting someone. You have 15 children in your face all trying to tell you something all at once.

Be VERY grateful that your child's teachers do their best to take on this challenge as best they can from about a week in. The chaos and upset to the children is minimised by having a gentler run-in for them. They're not thinking about whether you're annoyed because you've already got your annual leave earmarked for other things or if your manager is being difficult about you needing to adjust your day for a couple of weeks. They only want the children to settle as quickly and happily as possible. You've known that your child will be starting school around that time ever since they were born, it doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, so there is plenty of time to plan ahead to think about how you are going to manage the slight disruption for just a few days at the very start of the next 12 or 14 years of their lives.

If you have never been in a Reception classroom for any length of time I think you'd find it an eye opener. Those teachers deserve a medal and a stiff drink at the end of each day. 😆

That said- although I hated the faffing, I didn’t mind a few days of them having half the class there. I could get on board with a week of full days where they split the class into a smaller group but really short days felt silly. My daughter’s first week had her in school for less than 3 hours- it was ridiculous.

No not flower fairies, their parents, you know the people actually responsible for them? Mums and Dads? They have a minimum of four years to prepare, it shouldn’t come as a shock that four years after you give birth that child will start school and get this, you have to collect them when the school tells you! Mad isn’t it?

schools do only do this for the good of your child, you know.

I've taught many reception classes and honestly this is nonsense in my professional opinion. Young children thrive on routine. Weeks of staggered days being picked up by random family friends or relatives, spending some time back in nursery despite now being at big school, not knowing if today is a day you stay for dinner or not etc is all the complete opposite of putting a child first.

What happens to the current Reception year when the pre-admission pupils come in for their half days in the summer term? Are they all shoved in the stuffy hall to watch a film for the afternoon, or sent out to play all afternoon, supervised by a couple of TAs?

At the school I work in there is so much going on in the summer term there is no way we could accommodate another 90 pupils coming in on top of the ones we already have. We wouldn't have the staff in the right ratios to do proper teaching, and we don't have the funding to take on any extra for that purpose.

They do thrive on routine, yes. Not chaos. There is a halfway "organised chaos" that is the first week or so of most Reception starting routines, I think. A good compromise between the ridiculous way that OP's school is doing it and the "in FT from day one" approach, in my opinion. I agree with you that backwards and forwards to Nursery in the summer term would just be confusing and unsettling for the children. The 6 week school summer break is a long time in a child's world. They've probably barely remembered what their new teacher looks like after that, even if they did come in during the summer term.

2 mornings at ours, then straight in to full time. It was something we asked on viewings as I can’t be doing with a long drawn out nonsense.

They also do 2 transitions visits at the end of June and beginning of July. They are just a couple of hours in their new classroom with the teacher each time.

Mine just started full days from Day One. They had a taster afternoon before the Summer Hols & that was that.

Far better imo.

Not all reception classes have 30 children in, none of the schools here do. Biggest is 15, DD’s has got 5! They have a mixed age class with Y1 but even that’s only 12-15 total. The nearest 3 schools (all 4-11 ) have between 68 and 100 kids total. We don’t all live in town.

DD has managed 10hrs a day at nursery for 4 years, Reception is a much shorter day. They do 2 mornings then full time. No fuss.

4 weeks is ridiculous! I thought 2 weeks was normal so booked 2 weeks off work but my DDs school is full time from day 1 (unless parents request otherwise).

I don’t know how people would arrange 4 weeks around work but also wouldn’t want to tell the school that DD was starting full time (as pp suggested) if other children in her class weren’t starting full time.

You do realise parents have limited leave. Not everyone can afford unpaid leave.
Parents would rather have their leave when schools are off.

When my oldest started schools it was half days for a week. That was a big enough headache.
My LO was about an hour less than a full day. His preschool visit was a whole 45mins in the playground (thanks nicola and your ott nonsense).

4 week is a piece of nonsense in the 2020s

Mine did a morning on the first day and parents joined them for lunch in the dinner hall which was so sweet.
Then straight into full time on day 2.

In our school, there's an afternoon at the end of June. New intake for after summer visits Reception. Current Reception visit Yr1 class, current Yr1 visit Yr 2 etc. Yr 6 get an afternoon out on the playing field/gym.

During their first year at school, children have the option to go part time e.g. only mornings building up to (usually) full time by the end of October half term. It is that though, it's an option decided between the parents and teacher.

I'm a primary school teacher and and can guarantee that schools wouldn't allow their own staff to work weeks of half days while their DC start school so I find it quite ridiculous that there are still schools that do this.

As I understood most schools don't do staggered starts anymore, I know some will disagree but I actually think that's a real shame. It's such a huge transition for them

Our school still haven't given us the plans for September (ffs) but if it's longer than a few days we will be pushing back. The alternative is he watches Peppa all afternoon while we work... which I'm sure most schools would agree is not preferable.

DD (who is now in Yr6) did two mornings until before lunch, one morning plus lunch, then full time. From 2nd morning they could come on the bus.

By day 3 she was annoyed she wasn't staying the whole day and coming home with her sister on the bus.

Its even more ridiculous when you consider that a lot of children not only go to preschool... they go to preschool in the same building, even classroom, as the reception class.

If a child needs longer... give them longer. But don't unsettle the ones who don't.

To all those parents being a bit bolshy about it "not being legal", schools do only do this for the good of your child, you know.

So do schools who start their reception children full time before week 4 not care so much then?

I disagree it's best for the children. A school near us splits the class in half - half do a week of mornings while the other half does the afternoons, then they swap for a week, then they swap back but include lunch (so the full class is there for lunchtime), then they do full time. It's disruptive, the children don't know if they're coming or going.

A few days settling in is fine. Weeks of it is too much.

No not flower fairies, their parents, you know the people actually responsible for them? Mums and Dads? They have a minimum of four years to prepare, it shouldn’t come as a shock that four years after you give birth that child will start school and get this, you have to collect them when the school tells you! Mad isn’t it?

Some parents cannot do this. My DD has a friend whose parents are both secondary school teachers. They can't take leave or work flexibly even with 4 years to prepare. It's not possible. They have no family nearby and wraparound care obviously isn't available for this sort of thing, so they had to insist on full time from day 1.

You say this like there's any actual evidence it's beneficial. There is not. And if it were that wonderful, why is there such variation? You've completely ignored all the clear potential negatives to the policy here. It's a very unbalanced picture.

Yes I've said similar before to staff at work when discussing the issue. It's funny how the schools who still do it present it as in the best interest of the child because if that was true they would surely offer their own staff unlimited time off to cover the period when their child started school but strangely enough they don't.

I can also imagine the posts on here if they did... It's so unreasonable my child's new teacher hasn't been in for 4 weeks because their settling their own child into a different school...

At various schools I've taught at, new starter reception days coincide with Y6 transition days so every year group moves up. This only works if most of the local secondaries choose the same day or if nearly all your leavers are going to the same school though!

OP I think what your school is doing is very outdated. My child's school did similar and I fedback that I thought it was out of step with what the majority of schools do now. They're still doing it though. My child was upset by it because she wasn't in at the same time as her nursery friends despite being in the same class. The school I teach at does full days from day one but allows shorter days if anyone requests them.

They can still go to nursery until they're five - might be an option? One of my son's nursery class did as her parents just couldn't get enough leave, and she was already happy and settled at nursery. When I find out she was staying on I wished I'd done that too.

I agree it's ridiculous. Ours was one week of no school at all then two weeks of faffing. Fortunately we could manage it with WFH but it was far from ideal.

That's excessive but not completely uncommon. Most round here are 2 weeks but my cousin's kid started last year and it was like yours.

DD is in reception and last year we had:

Tuesday - 2 hrs
Weds - 2.5 hrs
Thurs - 3.5 hrs, inc lunch
Fri - 4.5 hrs inc lunch

Full time from the next week.

I thought that was a reasonable balance. DD went to nursery and she found school exhausting for the first term or so. It's very different, even with all the play.

There is such huge pressure on nursery places that they need the older ones out now and not half in/half out. My one used to let the kids come back during transition but didn’t have the capacity to allow it last year.

No-one also talks about the impact on other children. My eldest had to do more holiday camp (at expense) as we had to save annual leave up to deal with school starting so couldn’t spend it as a family.

In the past it might have been a good thing if there were lots of sahms (although think it would have still been disorientating) but having kids passed from pillar to post re childcare or watching tv while their parents are working isn’t better than being in school. There were some kids who were booked into wrap around who weren’t in school but came back for the childcare.

In two weeks of school we only had one full day.