to think the whole "phasing in" thing at school is just a PITA!

[Maggietess]

DD2 starts school tomorrow, the equivalent of reception class. We have first day she stays for an hour with mum or dad (great idea). Rest of this week shes in for 2 1/2 hours a day (OK I'm still with the idea in general).

Then some more kids start next week so we've another week of in til 1130.
Then the week after its 1230.
Then finally in the 4th week it's full day til 2.

And this is the improved version of settling in, it used to take nearly til halloween to get them all in with a couple of kids starting every day.

I can understand the teachers needing a couple of days, even a week to properly get to know everyone but is 3 full weeks of it not a bit ott???

They then repeat a slightly shortened version of this in P1.

Add to that that our junior school finishes at 2 and senior school at 3 and you have some parents doing collections at 12.30, 2 and 3. Total pita.

Surely its all just a bit unnecessary given that most kids these days will have been at some form of nursery before??

Or AIBtotallyU?

Only one of mine settled in well & quickly, I think 3/4 needed long settling in periods. Yes, I was lucky that wasn't inconvenient. But school isn't there for my convenience.

Yes that's exactly it *exec I've spent so much time explaining the routine of school and then spend the next few weeks saying well no you don't have snack today, you do have snake now but not lunch, you do have lunch and then come home. I thought it was all way more confusing for her than it needed to be! Kids thrive on routine ime, whatever it is!

Sorry exex...
Anyway off out with dcs for a day trip. Will check in again later! Thanks for all the thoughts

At DS2's school they do 1 afternoon a week for 4 weeks of the summer term including 1 instance of having lunch with parents. This at least means that pick up can be combined with children already in school and means children are settled before the summer holidays. The reception children then do full days from September BUT this is a tiny village Primary with c.13 children in reception so I suppose easier to get the children settled into the school routine.

Maggietrees you seemed to be using the ratio as a reason why they should settle in more quickly though?

My sons school does a phased start with 5 or 6 children starting every few days. Once they are in they are in full time. Some children really benefit from starting with a smaller number of children in the classroom.

I don't understand StephenFry's point and others who say that school has nothing to do with facilitating parents to work.

People who work get on average 5 weeks a year holiday.

Clearly if settling in takes - as some have said on this thread - 4 or 6 weeks, then this presents a problem.

Many (most?) employers will not allow you to take more than 2 weeks holiday at a time.
If you are a single parent, then the amount of leave needed could exceed your annual amount.
When you take into account the other school holidays - clearly if you have used up all of your leave for settling in for one child that is going to be a problem.
Childcare for settling in is very hard to find I imagine - as it is a short period not ongoing work. And doesn't making the period so long that the parent/s have to hire someone else to do it, defeat part of the object of settling in. A child will be better off surely having a parent do it for a couple of weeks than a stranger do it for 6.
And so on.

Are these people suggesting that in families where there is a school aged child, one parent should not work? Because a lot of what is happening here is more or less incompatible with work.

There is talk about letting schools set their own holidays, so that children will be off at different times. This is going to mean much longer periods to cover where people have children at different schools. Presumably these people think that is OK?

It is difficult enough to juggle, organise and pay for childcare as it is, without schools organising things around an outdated view of family life. And actually, many schools recognise that many families do not have a SAHP on hand these days and take that into account. It's a shame more don't take a pragmatic view.

actually i think it's the whole work/home life balance that is outdated. i think people need to be paid (much) better hourly wages, working hours need to be reduced (and could be with better wages) to fit in better with family life, working days shorter and annual leave more family life friendly. i think the world of work should be adapted to allow families to spend more time together rather than school hours for 3/4 year olds being extended to allow parents to spend more time away from them. it's all arse about face IMO.

That's a lovely thought Stephen, I'm sure we would all like that as well. But it's never going to happen so perhaps schools should work with reality as it is now.

or maybe parents should find out what their school's policy is before the child starts and then decide if that fits in with their life then come to some other arrangement before September rolls around? your child starting school does not come as a surprise on the 1st of September. there is lots of time to decide what you are going to do, whether that be find childcare, take unpaid leave, delay the child's school start, ask the school for full-time hours.

That's lovely in theory Stephen but the company I work for is already desperately trying to keep afloat as it is. Giving employees that amount of flexibility just wouldn't make us viable (I do payroll) & also see how jobs are costed to customers & we've already had to make redundancies.

Some of the parents on the thread have probably spent all summer trying to find childcare. Often it will have been July (in induction/new parents days) that they will have found out.

It's not a lot of time to arrange things.

DDs school had a full term of half days for all the reception kids. It was very difficult to sort out childcare for the remainder of the day but with a combination of family help and half days from work I could sort it. Couldn't have done it otherwise. I think half a term would've been sufficient- 2 of my colleagues whose DC started reception at the same time said that their 2 weeks-1 month of half days at their schools (different councils) was fine.

Well I won't argue with that stephen but until that happens, things like this just make the lives of working parents even more stressful and potentially actually reduce the time spent together as a family

i'm not talking about individual companies suddenly paying out triple wages and halving the hours. i mean a change in Govt policies, over time to get to a point where that is the case. i'm sure many years ago they all had very 'good' reasons why it just wouldn't work giving women the vote or giving them the same jobs as a man does. it's called progress.

I don't see anyone saying they just found out about it now. It doesn't matter how much time you have to prepare if all the options for dealing with it are very disruptive and/or expensive.

If legally the schools have to provide full-time hours, why don't they tell parents that and give them an opportunity to request it?

"I don't see anyone saying they just found out about it now"
neither do i, which is exactly my point.

"If legally the schools have to provide full-time hours, why don't they tell parents that and give them an opportunity to request it?"

you would have to ask your own school why. do they all not tell parents in their induction literature? mine provide a number to call should you have any concerns regarding your dc starting at the school. i would have thought for anyone that this was an issue for they would have taken that as their invitation to discuss it with the school.

I also think its very disruptive for the children

My ds (who we now think has ASD but we didn't know then had a very disrupted start to reception class & took a long time to settle partly because he had an accident a couple of weeks after starting, had a few days off, then was sent home when his wound got infected etc. when he returned to school u had to go in to give antibiotics every day (cellulitis)

He didn't have the structure and routine from the start that would have helped him to settle in of knowing this is what happens I feel secure in my routine.

When children faff about with mornings first then it changes a couple of weeks later to afternoons etc they don't know where they are.

No, your point is that people have plenty of time to make arrangements. But the point of this thread is that those arrangements are difficult for many people, no matter how much time they have to prepare, and it's frustrating because for many children this kind of long phase-in simply isn't necessary.

I wouldn't presume to call up the school and tell them that I want some kind of special arrangement because their plans which are set don't fit in with my life. They have loads of children to look after and I am one person.

I only found out about the asking for full time thing here today. That doesn't sound great for the child though TBH being sat in a classroom potentially by itself for 1/2 day for up to 6 weeks.

That's just a terrible way to start a relationship with the school. And really presumptious.

Our school has a high % of families where both parents work. Settling in is a PITA but is only 1 1/2 week til before lunch then 1 week til after lunch. Children who need longer can have longer that gets arranged between parent and teacher but I am not aware of that happening in DD1s year.

We are really lucky as we have help from my parents and also another family member who we pay on an ad-hoc basis to help out. DD2 starts this year and I am taking a couple of days off work and DH has a week of unpaid leave. D is having an operation a few weeks into term which means a week off, for which I am taking more time off and so on.... It is terribly complicated especially as one of us works irregular hours and frankly I am impressed that we haven't had a "fail" on arrangements yet or confusion as it's so damn complicated.

So yes arranging all this stuff and making sure it is taken care of is my job, and it's not my job to ask the school to do special different things for me as I don't feel that's fair to them. But to think that schools could maybe think of the situations of parents when setting these things up I think would be a good thing to do in return.

why are you telling me what my point is? i know what my point is. people have plenty of time to make arrangements, they don't find out on the first of September. you said you didn't see anybody saying that- exactly nobody said they found out on 1st sept because nobody did find out on 1st sept. exactly my point.

Anbu.
Utter pita and very likely to be wholly unnecessary.

There's no way my school would give me 4-5 weeks of parental leave, even unpaid!

Also always seems odd way round. We claim that the youngest children need the most support to settle yet these are always the last children in, usually going into pre established classes, more children in and more busy. Surely it ought to really be the other way round?

School isn't child care - believe me I know, I work there! But they have to think about how this can all work. I wouldn't chose my school for my child based on the lengthy phased start. My school wouldn't give me the time off to permit it anyway. It's something I would check with a school before choosing it infact.

I think the idea is that the notice period isn't the issue. It could be 6 months notice and still be a nightmare to sort out.

I do think at many school they do it simply because its how it's always been done ESP those who have had January as/or Easter starters too. But times have changed. It is now far less likely that mum stays home and doesn't work. Schools should, IMO, change too to take this into account.