A crazy long 3 week confusing start into reception class in Sept!

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My DS2 is starting school in Sept - I thought that it would be the standard few days of mornings and then mornings and lunch then start school. (He currently does 3 full days at nursery school on the days I am at work ,with an afterschool club that we pick them both boys up from.)

But NO I have just been to a meeting and it is the most complicated 3 week carnival around. I can not even begin to think how we are going to manage it short of taking unpaid parental leave.

It is as follows:
Week 1 - Monday to Wednesday - Teacher and TA doing home visits to every single child starting school = 3 days of no school and no childcare available as can no longer attend nursery = 3 days off work.
Thursday - children surnames A-K to attend school in morning 9 til 11.45
Friday - children with surnames A-K to attend in afternoon 1.15 to 3.30
(visa versa for children with the surnames L-Z which means I can't even share with my best friend as she is P surname and I am a H surname)

Week 2 - School 9 til 11.45
Parents invited to attend lunch from 11.45 to 12.30 with their child on either Wed/Thurs or Fri depending which class your child is in.
All very undoable with work, I cant really go in at 9.30 after dropping off and then leave at 11 to pick up from school.

Week 3 - School staying for lunch 9 til 12.30
Again confusing as the lunch time break lasts until 1.15pm so this means they will just eat their lunch and go home, no exposure to the playground.

Then finally on 26th Sept they start full time school!!

I just can't understand why it is so bloody confusing! I really don't know what to do short of cancelling my summer holiday and taking it in Sept but that is unfair on my DS1 as he wont get extra time with me in the summer holidays.

Our school had a weeks break in which was fine for both my boys,both of whom have July Birthdays. In fact all the children were fine. Ops set up sounds a nightmare and these schools who operate this way really need a reality check.Working parents,children who have spent best part of four years in some sort of childcare,even children who have been at home the whole time (like most kids of my generation)really don't need this.And as for those schools who stretch it out for a term...Jeez!!!

happyscouse the OP has made it sound a lot more complicated than it is. If you read it with just one child in mind, it's a lot easier.

Really, schools are not in the habit of making life difficult for themselves so this will be a very tried and tested way of introduction.

Why can't they make it straightforward though? No-one knows whether they are coming and going with the OP's system.

DD1 did -

1 week until 12pm

2 weeks until 1pm (so staying for lunch)

Then full time after that.

YANBU. This sort of thing is a nightmare for working parents.

I know the school isn't there to provide childcare - if you go out to work then you are already used to arranging your own childcare anyway. However, whatever childcare arrangements you are likely to have put in place will be stretched to the limit by this sort of malarkey.

We were lucky that when DD started. Although there was a sort of three week staggered start it was optional, parents could put their DCs in full time from day one if they wanted to. Funnily enough most did!

I don't think the Op has made it sound more complicated than it is. She has spelt it out exactly as it is!
You say schools are not in the habit of making it difficult for themselves ,too right they are not! They are in the habit of making life difficult for working parents.

Seriously, I really don't understand why it is necessarily better for the children to start in a staggered way. Some children may find it easier, however others who are used to full time nursery may well be bored with afternoons at home.

I fully understand why it might be better for the teachers who haven't finished their lesson planning yet though .

Oh that's ridiculous happyscouse do you really think they hold staff meetings to come up with ways to make life more difficult for working parents, or do you think they just might be experienced by now in knowing what works for the kids they take in every single year?

minipie what does it have to do with lesson planning?

A staggered day for the kids, still means a full day for the teacher.

Nope I think they don't give them a thought! my sister is a teacher and agrees with me .

Parents are asked generally to do a lot more formally by schools than they used to be though as there isn't time to fit everything required in the curriculum into the school day.

In a time when it is far more likely that both parents are working it doesn't exactly help family life or the home/school relationship.

apologies worra I take it back, I hadn't seen that half the class go in the afternoons.

seems like a rubbish deal for everyone to be honest - more disruptive for teachers as the class swaps over at lunch, confusing for children and a right pain for parents.

what is wrong with starting them full time?

My DS will start school on 5th Sept and will be full time. I was stressed that this had only just been confirmed. Luckily my DS's school have decided that a staggered approach does not help children settle in to school. OP this sounds like a nightmare. Motto for school should be ' For education and not childcare'. It is going to be impossible to work full time and have a child in school.
I would speak to them about sharing a timetable with your friends child.

Well I can say it harmed my DS. By leaving at 12 noon and friends he'd made staying it upset him. He then had to adjust the next morning to how those friendship dynamics had changed in the 3 hours he'd missed.

IMO now that every child has 5x3 hours of preschool funded this should be the transition into school. Why do this and then say they're still not ready.

Yes I agree some aren't but then surely the parents can chose to keep them 1/2 days? No child has to attend f/t education until the term after they're 5. For my DS this was actually year 1.

Well, I have talked to the staff in the office again and there seems to be a chink of hope that I might be able to still have him attend the pre-school nursery in the afternoons that I am at work.

This is dependant on them having a space (as obviously new children get priority), plus they have to confirm and discuss if they are happy for this as a teacher or TA has to then walk him across to the nursery. My husband thinks that this will be difficult and confusing for him to be going back and forth - I tend to agree.

It seems I am the 1st parent to raise this as a problem. I honestly have no problem with the idea of a lead into school. I agree the staying for lunch in a canteen with 100's of other children, and then the playground that they share are all daunting prospects, but as they are only experiencing this for one week and even then only the canteen and not the playground I don't see how this helps the child.

My mother is nearby but works, and my MIL lives 25 miles away so difficult for her to make a 50mile round trip 3 times a week.

I can probably take unpaid parental leave but it is hard in the current climate - I work for a bank in sales role. I will get no leaway with my targets for having extra time off in addition to my holiday, so have to try make up for the 5 weeks I will have off in total in that quarter or else get put on a performance improvement plan. Joy!

Arrggh......

I think we have got off lightly. Week 1 - Mon 9 to 12; Tues 8:50 to 12; Wed 8:50 to 1:15 as staying for lunch; Thurs - full day. That is it!

I would let him stay if you can bear it. He will have to start full time anyway. If you can do one or two days with transferring at lunchtime it will help.
Mt DC starts in Sept too

Had the same. Was fuming. No thought for working parents, three whole weeks of messing about. It doesn't do the kids any good either. And I'm not gonna spout about "in my day" but kids are in nursery these days and know the score, it's not like they've spent four or five years with mummy at home and are being suddenly ripped from the bosom. It's just not necessarry imo.

I think this is a ridiculous system, and don't think it helps them settle in, most children are at preschool or nursery, so going to and fro from that or being at home for some lunches and not others is not settling at all. I think a small lead in of a couple of mornings is fine. We never did this for pre-school, mine just started on day one and they loved it.

Ours is incredibly drawn out, they do weeks of visits beforehand, one hour, then two for three weeks in the summer term, then a whole week in the summer term, then starting it is staggered for weeks. I simply didn't send my dd2 to the intro sessions in the previous term as I was sure it would cause her more anxiety about leaving her friends (she was transferring schools) than reassuring her about her new environment.

They also had one class, then mixed it at the October half-term, which meant all the friendships that had been made and familiar faces changed again. Then in Jan a whole new set of children joined. It has taken my daughter the whole year to find a few settled friends and I wouldn't say it was nearly as settled as for my dd1 who went into a Year 1 class on day one and had a set of friends by the end of the week.

There's always a few children crying and finding it difficult to go in. I don't think all this toing and froing is justified at all, and it is difficult for working parents not only to cover it, but to constantly explain to their children why they are being looked after in several different places unlike their nice nursery.

My DD starts on september, school goes back on tuesday and all the nursery children from last year start fulltime that day. DD is coming from a different nursery so her and her 7 friends start on wednesday also fulltime and the new nursery children start thursday and friday. Everyone in and starting the education only one day short of the 190 days mandatory school attendance.

Why is it school make a fuss about holidays in term time because you legally have to send your children to school but then feel they can refuse to give them their legal right to education for 190 full school days?

I'm very lucky to have DD at a school that really does believe that education matters right from the start and therefore when they tell me i can't take her on holiday in term time i respect them for it. I'd respect this far less if they were messing my child about for weeks.

And saying 'we know it's tough for the working parents but best for children' is totally disingenuous, given that most parents do work at least part-time (2/3rds of mums and more than that of dads). So why should that not be taken into account in trying to give the most stable and constant environment for 5 year olds starting school?

My DD2 starts school in September and they don't go full time until October. That is five weeks. How many parents can take five weeks off work in a row?

I really can't see how this benefits children. DD1 started school (aged 4y 6m) 21 years ago and on day one she went in at 9 and came out at 3.15. She'd only previously been to a pre-school playgroup in the mornings. She settled well and was fine.

DD2 has been at nursery 5 days a week from 8am to 4.30pm since she was 10 months old. She is going to find it very confusing to be going to school for just 2 hours.

DS2 starts in september and has six weeks of faffing around on a ridiculous timetable. DS1 did it last year and no one liked it. They only have 9 children in the intake (small school), will be joining a similar number of Y1 kids in a mixed R/Y1 class, four of the nine are siblings and know the school anyway - come on, this doesn't take 6 weeks to get used to, does it?