@Heyiam
Genuine question.. those that are claiming there’s not enough space for backpacks if yr 4 or younger, surely there is a chair for each child that the backpack could be hung on? Also if a school has the room the host a p.e bag all the time bar half term when they are sent home to be washed it would be a fair presumption going by responses on this thread that parents would rather go in with a rucksack everyday and use the p.e hook than negotiate the school run with book bag lunch bag water bottle plus w.e else separately. For all the teachers / ta’s saying book bags are easier, there’s plenty of things that would make my job easier unfortunately I still have to do it the hard way. Suck it up. Putting 30 books in 30 rucksacks isn’t worth getting worked up about surely?
@Heyiam, I work in reception, the children don't have a chair each, it's very much free flow.
As for making my job easier, that's really not the point.
I have 60 children in my year, if I take just 3 minutes changing each child's reading book (yes, it does take that long, fetching bag, checking which books have been read, what level do they need, finding suitable replacement, marking off in folder to keep track, writing in reading record, putting back) that's 3 hours just to change books, and that's with book bags.
Would people prefer teachers and TAs to spend even more time on this, or would they rather that time was spent actually listening to children read?
Same goes for all the other stuff we need to put in and out of bags on a daily basis, more so in reception as 4 year olds can't be relied upon to do it properly themselves yet. It's in everyone's interest to get these jobs done as quickly as possible so we can actually spend our time helping the children, maybe even teaching them to learn how to do this stuff independently!