that school won’t cut me any slack for double drop offs?

[Polkadotdash]

We moved house in the summer and we’ve ended up with three kids at two different primary schools. I accept that it is what it is and we have to just fit in where there are places. However, after a month of nearly killing myself to drop kids off at both schools, two miles apart who start at exactly the same time, I’ve asked both schools if they can help to take the pressure off me by accepting one child five mins early and maybe dropping the late mark drama for the other children. Neither school will budge. One school has a breakfast club which they’ve suggested I use for £5 a day. £25 per week, nearly £1000 per school year for five mins care (no food required). I can’t afford this.
It’s all been capped off today by one parent (who I don’t know) shouting something at me about the importance of not being late when I was trying to make my four year old run up the hill to school. I can’t put up with this for the next 5 years. What should I do? Should the school be more caring?

I worked it out once and found after child minder and travel I could have earned £100 per year.
Less than £2 per week.
But I would have had to buy a whole wardrobe of clothes (only own t.shirts and a pair of jeans and trainers) so that would have wiped out a couple of years earnings and then if I had to sponsor, secret Santa , leaving whip round, office christmas lunch there might be pennies left over.

I don't know unless you have family to step in or you earn megabucks how with more than one child bow people afford to go to work

The youngest isn’t even compulsory school age yet so no I wouldn’t be taking them and making my elder child late every day. And plenty of parents who are unhappy with their child’s school place would love to be in the position to HE while they await a preferred school place but can’t because they have to work!
Like I said I don’t think schools should be required to provide free out of hours care to accommodate parental choices. The op has been given lots of advice here as to how she can solve her dilemma but the only options she is happy with is
having all the children at her first choice of school, free childcare so they can attend her 1st and 2nd choices or her middle child’s school accepting lateness every day. These aren’t just things you can demand/expect when you have even offered a place for all children at a different school.

*been offered

We do have some family help, but even without it, had we both wanted to work FT we'd still have been in profit from it. And that's as middle earners.

HOWEVER... several important caveats. I never stopped work so have become more experienced and employable since having DC. Both our employers did vouchers, a real boon as we aren't entitled to tax credits. But not all employers do. And we only have 2. Going from 2 to 3 would be the real killer for us!

I read the reason op didn't want the school where they all could go as she thought it would be better to have school friends close by and the extra petrol costs would have made it unaffordable.

If op cannot afford £5 per day I doubt she could afford the extra petrol and wear and tear on the car. Also if she broke down how would 3 under 11s get home

The youngest isn’t even compulsory school age yet so no I wouldn’t be taking them and making my elder child late every day.

Which is your choice, but as I said, OP isn't being some entitled non-compromiser by sending a child to reception class 3 months before the compulsory schooling age. She's just not. It's a perfectly reasonable and normal thing to do, since the vast majority of reception aged children in the UK attend school. And it's a legitimate expectation that a child shouldn't have to miss out on reception class because of lateness issues that can't actually be prevented at present.

Also, this issue can be solved in other ways than schools providing free out of hours childcare. It would be perfectly possible for both to continue providing no free childcare but also not to issue any sanction either.

I quite agree about the HE point btw, which is why I pulled a poster up earlier for making a silly claim about people having the choice to HE when in reality most of us don't actually have the option. Needing to work being only one of many reasons why it might not be possible in a given situation!

Yeah I wondered if there was an element of that oliversmumsarmy. I really don't think we have enough info either way for us to be assuming that the offered school was or wasn't a viable option, as some posters have done.

As far as I’m aware the op said she didn’t want the other school because she didn’t want to separate her children from their friends not because the petrol would be unaffordable. I’m sure the op would have said if the distance was so much that it would cos the same or more as breakfast club! It’s not ideal to separate the kids from their friends but plenty of parents have to cope with not getting their preferred school.
And I don’t think the school are sanctioning are they? But it can’t be nice for the child to be rushing around and set off on the wrong foot being late every day/having to walk into assembly etc.

OP said the school was too far away. She specifically mentions friends locally, but there's no information given about how far it is, how long the journey would take, whether there are public transport options if the car dies etc. That's why I was wondering, and why nobody can really say if this was a sensible decision or not (although the places have possibly all gone now anyway so it might be moot).

Sanction- late marks. They will need to record the child coming in late of course, but it would be possible to deal with this with some reassurance and sensitivity. Which doesn't fit with the OPs description of 'drama'.

Well if the journey wasn’t doable then him being separated from friends or not wouldn’t have been a consideration.
And you’re right there may be no places now but are the LA still respond since for finding a suitable school if the op has turned places at one down already? Surely parents could just continue to reject places until they get their preferred school if that was the case?

*still responsible

Tomorrow not necessarily because of Dunblane..... I live within an hour of there. Our local council provides 2 playground assistants from 8am in free breakfast club then from 8.20am in the playground until the bell at 8.45am. They are the same pupil support workers who assist the teachers in class so I presume their working day starts around 8.15am as per their contract.

It's invaluable and if schools would open their gates to allow children in and give a bigger timeframe for arrival it would resolve the issue. Understand it's more likely a funding issue and we are just extremely fortunate.

*8.00am

Well if the journey wasn’t doable then him being separated from friends or not wouldn’t have been a consideration.

It doesn't really, unless you're using the term 'doable' to only mean theoretically possible. If the journey would be theoretically possible but is dicey because of eg risk of not being able to get there if car breaks, in difficult weather conditions etc, that's still perfectly consistent with having felt a different issue was the most significant reason against. As I said, you cannot make assumptions: there just isn't enough information given.

I think any school will accept that kids might be absent/late due to snow or one-off emergencies. It’s hardly the same as it not being possible to get there on time which is the situation the op is in now.

It's very much frowned upon round here to keep anything except August babies out of Reception year. Besides which, op's youngest is already at the school. Who in their right minds would take them out once they'd got through the settling in period?

Whilst I totally agree that op would be silly to pull her reception child out of school now after settling in, who gives a damn whether it's frowned upon where you live? All the more reason for people to fight for their children and if they see fit, defer them. It's becoming much more common and I am so pleased. Children start school way too young here, in my opinion. Yes, some are ready, but many are not. And I think it's great that there is the option (legally) for summer borns be able to defer and that is not just August borns!

I meant that after Dunblane they had to look at school security and make it harder to happen again. Same as after 9/11 they looked at plane security.

This happened to me when I moved, with one difference - I refused to accept the situation and appealed, list the appeal and told them that therefore I would homeschool - a place magically appeared the following day at the school across the road (where the elder one was enrolled). I was so cross at the appeal hearing though - neither school had breakfast clubs and the education dept guy had the cheek to suggest that my mother could drop dd#2 at school for me - my mother lives 200 miles away!!!! I couldn't drive, it's a 30 minute walk between schools. Tell the education dept you cannot cope with the situation beyond half term, see what they suggest

Tbh I am glad they are like Fort Knox though.

Interesting that people suggest dropping and leaving on the yard. Not all schools allow this. Our school requires children to be supervised by parents until the teacher comes out to take them in. Specified time for that. Y5/6 are allowed to walk to and from school themselves but under that they need dropping and collecting in the form of a handover. We had split sites but the school was thoughtful enough to have a 10 minute gap between start times to allow for parents dropping between sites. Surely there must be other families at the school with split site issues at the same school. Hope I’ve read this correctly.

Ah I’ve misread the split site issue. Wrong child. I’m afraid I’d be gritting my teeth and taking the third choice school that has space for all 3. I’d maybe also pull the middle child out and tell the school you are home schooling. You’d be surprised how quick a space might become available at the school where the other 2 are. If not immediately but within a few months. I know people who’ve done this when they’ve wanted to move school due to disliking current school and wanting a new school. No places anywhere else until they’ve been de registered and informed of home schooling.

I’d certainly not be paying the breakfast club for 5 minutes.
I would consider also just being late. They don’t like it as ofsted will complain. If it means downgrading their current status they may suddenly find you a space for your middle child if it’s the other 2s school you’re constantly late for. You’ll get referred to EWO but there’s not much they can do. They can’t fine you like they would an absence. I’d not be expecting free child care but I don’t think this is what you actually want. If you pay for the child care they will just forget there’s an issue.

I think people are missing the point if OP couldn't afford the money for breakfast club then she should have worked out her options before she moved, they may not have granted the school place before that but they would have been able to tell her what places were available at that time. It's a crap situation and I sympathise but Ops choice to move so ultimately her responsibility to work out and taking a late mark every day whilst may not have an impact on the child's learning does surely have other effects as who wants to be the kid who's late and last into class every single day!

tootiredtofunction it wouldn’t matter how many places were available in umpteen schools before op moved. None would have been allocated before she had an address in the district.

You can’t just say I will take that spare place in that school. Now just let me sell my house and buy another in the area.

School allocations don’t work like that

I take it op isn’t going to come back and reply at any of the suggestions