To think its fine to take a reception child out of school this Friday.

[ReallyTired]

My neighbour's son was five years old last week. Legally he does not have to be in school. There is no school tomorrow and my neighbour is planning to take him out of school on Friday and take a mini holiday.

I feel that the school doesn't have a leg to stand on if the teachers are striking tomorrow. The poor kid is utterly shattered and I think a short holiday will do him the world of good. I would take my daughter on Friday out if I didn't have an older child.

MidniteScribbler

I don't expect my kids to be "cleaning up" on the last day of term. That is what support staff is for. I think that support staff would find having 30 four to five year olds "helping" with cleaning a nightmare.

Anyway tomorrow is not the last day of term. Its a normal day.

We don't ask/get pupils to clean up on the last day of term.
We do have a relaxed fun day, often with children bringing in a game or toy. We have some whole class work, and an end of year assembly - the latter being important to our y2s as they leave our infant school.

ReallyTired They make the mess, they help clean!!

Plus we have one TA across the whole department so I think asking her to clean 12 classrooms would be a bit much...

The Kids love cleanup. The place is usually dripping (but very clean) by the time they're done.

ThingyTheBusCleaner
I assume you are not in the UK. In the UK schools employ cleaners. We are also talking about very young children. When my daughter tries to "help" me with housework its a nightmare. The idea of 30 reception kids doing clean would result in the classroom being messier than when they started. Reception children are four to five years old.

When we talk about 'cleaning up', it's not vacuuming or cleaning tables, but taking artwork down off the walls, sorting out books in to their bags to go home, finding all the assorted pens/textas/scissors that have migrated from their homes, making sure all library books are returned to the library. Even very young children can help with that.

Tidying is different. Ofcourse young children can help with tidying. My daughter's class have tidy up time every day.

OP, you need to get yourself into a school as a volunteer as you clearly have no idea what's involved in making sure the school is ready for September.

SuburbanRhonda
I am pretty confident that I have far more idea than you. I have no need to volunteer.

I worked in schools doing ICT support. I used to put in 2 weeks of work every summer. A lot goes on in a school in the summer holidays. Teachers often come in to sort resources or paper work. There is often decoration, maintaince work or deep cleaning over the summer.

A school without kids is wonderful. A school without teachers present is even better! I used to love strike days when I worked in ICT support.

I am pretty confident that I have far more idea than you.

What on earth gives you that idea?

A day off today aged five? YANBU. It won't make much difference.

Your attitude to schools and teachers? YABVU.

SuburbanRhonda
What do you do for a living? Have you ever set foot in a school outside term time? There is a real hive of activity in schools over the summer of holiday to get everything ready for the next academic year.

Kids might help with tidying, but their help is nominal as they are so young.

I find young students can actually be very useful in helping to tidy up. They generally love to get a 'job' from the teacher, and I think that expecting students to clean up after themselves is actually a valuable skill. In my classroom, we all know that it's not the cleaner's job to clean up after our mess and we need to make sure they can do their job easily (chairs up on desks, bigger bits of rubbish off the floor, taking food waste out to the compost bin, etc). Even young students can wipe a cloth over a desk, put books away, put pens back in the right spot, clean off whiteboards, take artwork off the walls and hand it out, sort books, empty smaller bins in to the bigger bins, put away equipment, and all the other little jobs that need doing I a classroom. You can definitely tell the students who have never been expected to ever clean up after themselves and expect others to do the work cleaning up their mess. I think that teaching responsibility for taking care of their school and classroom is a very important lesson for students to learn and setting the expectations from day one make for a much easier school year.

Yes, there are about six of us who go in for about three weeks at various points over the summer holidays.

HTH