To wonder how the heck schools expect working parents to cope with this?

[Worriedaboutdog]

Apologies this may be a rant. DS1 is due to start school in September. We have therefore put childcare plans in place based on him starting school on the first day of term in September. School have just announced that:

a) reception start a week later
And
b) as a summer birthday, DS actually will do half days for another week after that, and ‘must be picked up at 1.30pm’.

No mention of either of these things was made when we looked round the school. We have already juggled the time off we have available to look after him over the summer. As it happens it’s probably easier for us than most parents as DH is a shift worker so can cover some days, but we were relying on him going to school at the beginning of September, and being in after-school club on days DH isn’t at home until I can get there to pick him up. Wtf are parents who both work Monday-Friday meant to do about two extra weeks?! This was all announced today in a meeting (I couldn’t go, because it was at 3.30pm, but DH did), and when he asked the class teacher if they had to go home at lunchtime or could stay and then go to after school club, she said they had to go home and we’d have to get ‘a grandparent or someone’ to pick them up. So we’ll just magic up a grandparent physically fit and willing enough to do a whole week of half days childcare, who is actually able to drive to the school, then.

He can possibly go back to his current nursery for the week he isn’t in school at all, but the half days are stumping me. I think I probably am being unreasonable to be cross - I realise school is not designed to be childcare, and therefore not run for the convenience of the parents, BUT they must know that parents make assumptions (based on the information on their website!) about the dates of terms and the length of the school day, and make arrangements accordingly. And that this just isn’t feasible for everyone, and if they don’t bloody tell you about it until June then plans (and budgets) for September childcare are already in place! Argh.

Dungeondragon I claim tax credits, so what? I'd rather see my children grow up than look back at their childhood and know I'd missed it because I was always at work.

Lucky there are others that go to work and pay tax to all this to happen for you eh?

*make all

glovepuppet the point here is that there IS no good evidence that staggered starts are in the best interest of the child or effect educational outcome in any way. I think certainly at my kids school it is done for the benefit of the teachers who wish to have time to get to know the kids. This may be a valid point however this has to be weighed against the disruption to parents who have to put jigsaw puzzle childcare in place and the negative outcomes for children who find the inconsistency disorientating.

What fuels the fire here is the accusation that working parents are somehow less responsible or care less about their children because they question the value of phasing in. That is simply point scoring smuggery.

"....those of us who chose not to have kids consider unfair or unreasonable...."

So, you're not a parent, Glovepuppet?

My eldest's school tried this when she first started except they wanted all the late spring/summer kids to go part time for the first 6 weeks. When the teacher came to do the home visit i explained that DD had been in full time childcare/nursery from 6 months old and so moving to school was not going to be a hardship. The teacher mumbled a bit but agreed when pressed that DD could go full time from day 1.

funnily enough, my neighbor who's son was also starting - same school but different class and teacher, was told categorically it was not possible.

Give it a try OP and see what response you get.

I'm not confusing anything, Its two weeks! she should've checked OP yabu because you didn't have all the information when you made solid arrangements, The school is not at fault this is the way schools have worked for decades !

Its not the schools problem. You need to take responsibility for your own life style choices

As I think a number of posters have pointed out, it is not the way schools have worked for decades. It is one way in which some schools have worked for an indeterminate period of time.

If they don't advertise it, or mention it, it is not reasonable to expect people to guess that compulsory education only applies to them and not to the school. How are parents supposed to check if you don't even know its a thing because the school haven't said? That's just bonkers.

Legally you are entitled to a full time place from the first day of term. The school have to make a provision for it if you request it.

This ^

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/389388/School_Admissions_Code_2014_-_19_Dec.pdf

Paragraph 2.16 of the document states your right.

School comms are generally shocking, you’ll get a term note which is fine but all the other stuff is totally done by someone who knows the score before they write the letter, we have frequently had a text a 430pn for something be ded for 9am the next day...

FWIW our reception started 2 days later and straight in full days

Is going to work really a lifestyle choice @Lethaldrizzle? Most people I know are not in the privileged position for it to be a choice, unless they rely on benefits which is surely unethical if you are able to work and just choose not to.

@Lethaldrizzle - it is the school's problem, or it certainly would be very quickly if all the parents enforced their legal right to have a full time place from the first day of term.

Its also pretty snarky to tell someone to take responsibility for their own life style choices when a) working and parenthood is not exactly uncommon and b) the school are not complying with the law.

It's really shit. Ours was the same last year. Thankfully I have a wonderful Childminder

I'm not confusing anything, Its two weeks! she should've checked OP yabu because you didn't have all the information when you made solid arrangements, The school is not at fault this is the way schools have worked for decades !

No it hasn't. There is much variation and that has always been the case. When eldest DD started school this didn't happen but by the time her sister started it did at her school but not many others.
Anyway, why would a parent check in advance whether the school would only take children part time? The natural assumption would be that the schools will take them when they are open (i.e. 9 to until 3 -3.30 ish).

MissMarple, I hear what you say about it all being on the school calendar, and you are correct that it should be. Most schools do put a framework of a calendar on their websites.

However, when my kids were in primary school the calendar was often wrong and frequently changed at very short notice. They once even published the wrong week for the October half term, didn't correct themselves until very near to the time and were then forced to authorise holiday for those who had booked to go away based on their wrong information because we could no longer get our money back.

Inset days - just as chaotic, similar applied.

School trips - not too bad, but on at least one memorable occasion they approached all of us parents from my Dad's class to ask why we had not returned the forms and payment for a major trip that was leaving the next day. Answer - they had not even sent the letters out and none of us knew about the trip. Cue one mad race about to get suddenly organised so that it could go ahead or it would have cost the school an arm and a leg through their own stupidity.

Sports day was not put on the calendar until later in the year and was always subject to change if the weather was even just slightly cloudy.

Staggered settling in periods just don't seem necessary in most cases. Starting as you mean to continue seems much more logical. The OP is lucky to have had 3 months notice, and that it is only for a couple of weeks. Many schools faff around for far longer than that and it makes life nearly impossible for working parents who need to set up childcare.

Yes, schools are often staffed by working parents. Some teachers have worked in other industries and sectors before joining the profession, and they are the ones who may have some idea what the pressures on working parents are like because they know that the hours and schedules simply don't match up. However, I know many teachers (including my own parents) who went straight into teaching following their student days and therefore do not have the experience to understand just what problems these batty schedules can cause.

My parents (long retired) did finally revise their opinions when presented with the struggles their own daughters experienced with childcare because we worked in different industries. They weren't in a position to help though (and wouldn't have on a regular basis anyway) because none of us live anywhere near each other.

Schools do need to appreciate that many families have both parents working now, often with no easy local family support network. Everything isn't simply on tap these days the way it once might have been.

Its not the schools problem. You need to take responsibility for your own life style choices

What, the lifestyle choice of whether or not a parent wants to be able to keep a roof over their child’s head and food on the table?

Most working parents aren’t in jobs just to get extra money for fun non-essential luxuries, after all....

It is the school's problem - they can't enforce a part-time timetable for Reception children. They are entitled to full-time education.

Im a primary teacher. You can legally start them from the first day of the autumn term. However, in my daughter's year group of 150 children (she goes to a massive school), not one single child's parents started them full time from the start.

If you think about the childcare ratios children have been used to in pre school and nursery (1:4 or 1:6), starting in a class of 30 children they may not know, in an unfamiliar environment, with a ratio of 1:15 (2 adults to 30 children), this is a massive change for year R starters. It's not so much the length of the school day which most find it hard to adjust to as the vast majority will have been to pre school. It's the taking turns, listening, waiting for help, waiting to speak to an adult which is hard for them.

That's why schools recommend you have the gradual start- so that half the class are in for the morning and half for the afternoon. The ratios are then 1:7 or 1:8. It makes a huge difference to how quickly children settle in. The first week is for home visits. The teacher and TA need to visit children in their own home to start to get to know their personalities, abilities and interests. This is vitally important for planning for their learning in early years.

My second child starts school in September. As a teacher myself it's impossible to get time off to look after him in the first week and in the afternoons the second. We don't have grandparents round the corner. One is travelling 4 hours each way to stay with us for a couple if days and them I'm calling in favours from friends to cover the rest. It just has to be done, I do agree it's difficult to manage though.

The school can provide a full time timetable but this isn't an ideal start to school. Many children feel overwhelmed and anxious in big groups when they start. It's not designed to be inconvenient, unfortunately it is but there are reasons behind it.

Its not the schools problem. You need to take responsibility for your own life style choices

That's why schools recommend you have the gradual start- so that half the class are in for the morning and half for the afternoon. The ratios are then 1:7 or 1:8. It makes a huge difference to how quickly children settle in. The first week is for home visits. The teacher and TA need to visit children in their own home to start to get to know their personalities, abilities and interests. This is vitally important for planning for their learning in early years.

I don't know any school that does home visits. Your argument that the lower ratio makes it easier to settle in would be fair enough if children were able to go to their preschool when not at school but that was specifically blocked at DDs school.

Well that's because the new intake of preschool children will be starting that week. They would be able to cope with the children who are just about to start school as well- their ratios are too strict!

Every school in my area does home visits so it's unusual that yours isn't doing them.

this is the way schools have worked for decades

it really isn't

maybe it's the way SOME schools have worked but not certainly not everywhere

Rainbow, I can see how that would make sense. However, the school DS will be going to has everyone in during the morning and recommends the summer borns leave before lunch, then after lunch before going up to full time. So their only time in school they have a 1:15 ratio, which doesn't seem likely to help.