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.

Bluesapp I don’t mean to be rude but how many times do you want people to keep coming on to say either ‘I didn’t do this when I started school as a kid’ and/or ‘my school don’t do this’ or ‘ my school did now dont’ before you accept that your experience as a kid and with your kids is not universal?

When mine started school they did half days for the first 3 weeks. I believe they now all start full days from day 1 though. I didn’t find it too bad luckily as I had a childminder when it was my eldest’s turn and then my folks had retired so could help with the youngest but otherwise it would have been a pain.

Yes, he has the school bus, but neither of us likes the idea of him being in the house alone until we get home. He turns 11 next month.

Why 2:40pm? I attended this school and it was 4:15pm back then.

Some of the other parents are completely stuck with this new finish time, they simply have no idea as to how they'll combine work with school. The infuriating thing is that 2 secondary schools were competing for child placements, no mention was said of this bombshell, the other school will stick to the 3pm finish time....but is now full!!!

lozster The few arrogant posters on here are the abnormal ones, where I live and I mean the whole country, this is normal! every school follows the same routine of staggered starts always have and most likely always will.

blusapp you truly bamboozle me, is it so hard to accept that not everywhere is like where you live? And why is relating a different experience in your life/area ‘areogant’? What a bizarre view to take.

mrcharlie my ds is reception but I have an eye to the dilemma you have at secondary even now. To go from wrap around care to no supervision at all just a month or so later for a period of several hours is quite a leap.

I have been told that the local (only) secondary where I live allows kids to stay in the library/canteen study club until 5.30. Whether that is common or will be the case when my kid goes there I don’t know.

I work at a big place where a cohort of peers had kids making the primary secondary transition a few years ago. They all have their kids coming home to an empty house. I did the same for 2 or 3 days a week as a child and I loved it but it depends on the child and how responsible they are. I can see you might think that 2 hours alone is ok but when it stretches to 3 start to get a bit concerned.

Until very recently our school did half days until the January after they started. Most schools now do much less but there are still some that do half day until after October half term locally.

Home visits? thank god our school doesn't do that. no way i would take one of my precious days off work to do absolutely nothing with my child but wait for a teacher to come around for 15 minutes or so (30 kids, 5 days time, travel time - can't bs more than 15 minutes). what a waste of resources! might make sense for struggling families later in the year, but before school even starts?

mrcharlie said

"Just another fucking example of public sector areas deciding what works best for them!! They must live in cuckoo land. Do they not realise that out here in the REAL world we have to do as our employer says.

Honestly, what a shit fucking country when the public sector dictates how the private sector functions"

---

Typical of the self-centred, arrogant attitude too many people have these days. The world doesn't just revolve round you, you know?

There are dozens of teachers, hundreds of pupils and loads of other families affected, many of which might gain benefit from the change, suiting their lives more conveniently, let alone the key point being schools first and foremost make decisions for the benefit of the pupils they teach.

It would be nice to think they altered the time just to piss you off, but it's probably a more considered decision than that, aimed at improving the school community.

Is it any wonder that kids lack respect for teachers when their parents so clearly don't?

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 DCs primary school and the primary I currently work at not only have full days from the first day of term for the new intake of children but don’t mess around with their home visit rubbish either. Only a couple of schools in this borough do all that messing around fortunately.

The few arrogant posters on here are the abnormal ones, where I live and I mean the whole country, this is normal!

So the posters who say that it doesn't happen at their child's school are arrogant and abnormal?!!

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

Can’t be that vitally important if not everywhere does it.

My daughter starts full time for the start of September.

I recall this from when my daughter started school, and I was a single parent. I had to use most of my annual leave to accommodate it. Annoying

@BlueSapp that really didn't happen at my child's school last September!

Lots of schools don't do home visits. In fact I hardly know any that do

The few arrogant posters on here are the abnormal ones, where I live and I mean the whole country, this is normal! every school follows the same routine of staggered starts always have and most likely always will.

Arrogant? Because my DC happen to attend a school which wants all their Reception children to start full time from day 1? A decision that our school has made because the head teacher believes it to be best for the pupils?

Do you even know what arrogant means?

Mrcharlie why does the end of school time matter for a secondary age child? Can he/she not walk or take a bus/train home by that age?
I'm at a secondary and very few dc are collected by parents.

Also, not sure the schools are thinking about it quite as politically as that...

The school where i work does the home visits to the reception children, usually two TA's go along. I would have been a bit intimidated myself i think, it seems a bit much but there must be reasons for it i suppose.

DS starts reception in September full time from the first day of term. The teacher has actually said that her 25 years of teaching experience have taught her they settle into their routine much more quickly and build friendships faster if they take this approach. I can see where she's coming from as surely it's more unsettling to a child to go for different hours on different days and have to be picked up by various different people helping with childcare than just to be in one place with their teacher and picked up as normal. They are, however, flexible and say they're happy to discuss reduced hours if you think your child is too tired/ struggling. So not a one size fits all policy. Hope you can get sorted op. Sounds like a pain.

Where I live secondary children do get themselves home, but that's not the issue with an early finish is it?
2.40 is bonkers if the kid is going to be alone until 6 pm. And so much depends on what your home is like, what your neighbours are like, how many siblings you have etc.
If your children are going to come home to an older, responsible sister or brother, and live in a friendly street in private houses then maybe.
If you are an only child living in a not so nice tower block and your neighbours include junkies and drug dealers it's not ideal to be just turned 11 and on your own.
MrCharlie I had ds go to the school library for half an hour some days after school to do homework, which had the added benefit of getting it out of the way, and also most high schools have sports clubs etc that they can go to.
I didn't want my kid wandering the streets for hours. They don't just leave primary and and become mini adults, for all that some people think they should!

Our primary school did do the staggered settling in bullshit for the first two weeks, but thankfully none of these totally unnecessary home visits.

They did visit the local preschool for the odd couple of hours and could observe many of the children there, as they interacted with others without parents around. That strikes me as more sensible.

I don't see phased starts as necessary, and I cannot for the life of me see these 10 minute home visits as anything other than a box ticking exercise, and a huge waste of already limited resources. It is farcical.

At the start of each school year teachers up and down the country are meeting classes of new children (all age groups) for the first time. Both at primary and secondary school. They do this without home visits and just get on with it.

I have this problem coming up and I'm a teacher. If you pay for private nursery they may be able to take him so you don't have to do any half days. Here the problem isn't the half days - they only offer that on parents' request - but the fact that they start so much later than the rest of school due to the home visits.

I had this same bollocks 10 years ago when dd started ft school. She was in childcare at the same school. Had spent weeks in f1 or whatever it was. Did 3 days a week 8am until 5.30pm. Yet still needed an adjustment month. During which school said I would have to pay for wraparound care.

I called the head on it. I was in receipt of tax credits at the time as a single parent on nmw so basically the school expected me to continue my tax credits claim for another month to facilitate their plans.

When I pointed this out hm just shrugged. I said I would pay for the afterschool club as I had anticipated and breakfast club as anticipated but not the afternoon session they expected me to pay for as dd was legally entitled to a ft place as from the first working day in september after her 4th birthday.

It's such bollocks, all my kids were in childcare 8-6 a few days a week before they started school, so doing half days was just a PITA for me and no benefit for them.