Staggered start is illegal exclusion

[HapptobeTHATparent]

DD turns 5 on 2nd September. Just received her school starter paperwork and it's a staggered start, so won't actually start full time until 16th September. No home visits so no need for staggered start. 26 children already attend the school nursery full time.

AIBU to accuse the school of illegal exclusion by not allowing DD and the 25 others already attending school (nursery) full time (plus any new starters who wish to start full time straight away), to return to school on the 1st September like the rest of the school.

State maintained school (not academy).

Slightly tounge in cheek, but also hoping for some links to documents I can quote at the school.

In secondary a chunk of your students leave before the end of term which frees up capacity. This doesn’t happen in primary

Our school do one day of staggered start. One class in the first day, the other class in the second, third day everyone is in.

Is there any actual research into the effectiveness or otherwise of a staggered start for kids?

Kind of missing the point of the thread.......but in new zealand
, kids start the Monday after their 5th birthday

About 10-12 years ago it was the same when mine started, they had been in school nursery plus wraparound care for ages and holiday club all summer (I worked full time from when they were both a few months old) It meant paying an absolute fortune to the school wrap around care for 6-7 hours a day so they could do 1 hour of school and then cross over to a different classroom for wrap around care- insane!

In your experience, does “some children” = “at least 20%”? I realise there will be a few who will struggle but I think if it’s that many then it is a reflection on the school. But I suspect/hope it was an exaggeration.

Exactly

My eldest started school full time in 1996, July birthday so just 4. I just asked school if he could do that as both DH & I worked full time.
School said yes.
No drama

That’s really interesting. How do they structure the classes? At the start of the school year (January?) there might only be one or two kids who have turned 5. Do they mix them with the kids who started the previous year? And then do you get kids who start in the last week of term and then immediately get a long summer holiday? Must be a challenge to teach with kids trickling in each week. Is it play based for the first year?

“Dumped in a creche”

Bingo! There’s always one.

Again - why not just say the staggered start doesn’t work for your child, and you want her to start full time from the word go, @HapptobeTHATparent?

My daughter starts school in September too. The headmaster explained the settling in period used to be six weeks but they’ve reduced it to three weeks of half days, as they know it’s tough for parents to juggle. Whilst many go to nursery, it’s still a huge adjustment for them. Very few in my daughters class (if any) are in nursery full time, three days is about the maximum.

It’s a month of inconvenience in 7 years at school. Suck it up, it can’t come as a shock, it’s been this way for decades. I remember doing mornings one week and afternoons the next week, and that was 1984.

I’ve taken annual leave on some days, my husband on others and my Mum is doing some other pickups.

Why the need to “suck it up” when the school is obliged to offer full time schooling from the start of term?
None of my children did staggered starts, all had been in full time nursery since they were 6 months old. There was no need to do half days in reception

I haven't read the full thread.

This is not an illegal exclusion as your child is not yet of compulsory school age, but it is a breach of the Admissions Code. The Code says that your child is entitled to a full-time place in the September following their fourth birthday (paragraph 2.17(a)). The Schools Adjudicator has been clear that this means from the start of term. Parents can choose to send their child part-time until they reach compulsory school age, but the school cannot force it.

Whether they are ‘entitled’ or not, the school is likely to be accommodating if you just talk to them.

in order to comply with the school admission code, kids are entitled to attend full time in the September following their fourth birthday as a PP has said. However the issue of ridiculous 6-week staggered starts has not been challenged in a court as far as I’m aware so all we have is the code.

Every year there are debates about staggered starts.

My personal experience across a few kids and friends’ kids is that in areas where both parents work full time, the staggered start business doesn’t really happen. In areas where it is common to have a female stay-at-home parent, or part-time working parent, it does.

kids without SEND AND who have been in home or non domestic full day (or even wraparound) childcare are unlikely to find full day reception class unmanageable. Personally I can understand a week or so of having limited numbers of new starters each day. After that, not so much.

it’s always up to individual parents to elect to send their kids as part-time as they want until they are of compulsory school age -ie, the start of the term after they turn five.

I was dreading reception start because of all the horrors I heard about staggered starts, as it turns out DDs school did it really well. Reception class started 1 week after the rest of the school, during that week the teachers did their home visits, introduced themselves to the kids and showed them some pictures and a routine of what the school day would look like.

Then the next week the kids who they identified as needing more support started on Monday so they had a day in class with just a few of them and the teachers/TAs could be more hands on with them, a few more started on Tuesday then the rest on Wednesday but when they started it was full time from day 1.

It meant that some kids started 8 days after school term started but I found that less disruptive as a method than lots of days of bits and pieces of attending.

My DD had been in full time nursery though so there was no concern over whether she'd be able to manage a full school day, we were actually more concerned that staggered short days would throw her off.

the teachers are out doing home visits.

WTF? We had none of this when I was a kid. Full days from day one, teacher never set foot in the house.

Staggered starts haven’t been looked at by the courts as such but there has been a ruling by the Schools Adjudicator:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/296261/ada2479_st_marks_primary_bournemouth_16aug13.pdf

So what is a teacher meant to do when she becomes a parent? She can't take annual leave during term time.

Same goes in universities.

Ooo the dickheads are out for this one! Getting the jibes in on a friday night. Love. It.
Yeah, the school can't refuse to take them full time but be gentle OP, you don't want them thinking you are a nobhead. It will not make for a pleasant 7 years.
Also, why has more than one person stated that school isn't childcare? 🙄 er if course it is.

Do you seriously think you could handle 30 mainly 4 year olds, without knowing their names, in a new environment where none of them knew the rules, where the toilets are, where they eat their lunch etc without a large number wetting themselves, crying, getting lost, wandering off and then have to dismiss them all to the correct parents, again with none walking out of the door or crying?

I'm.not sure how old you are but when I started school in the early 90s I didn't start until after Christmas because I was a summer baby...and this was common place.

Me? No.

EYFS trained professionals? Yes. Absolutely. Hundreds do every September.

Parents like you are why I couldn't be a teacher!

MN comprehension skills at their finest on this thread, I see.

And lots of sneering and anger about being That Parent, but quite a few ironically happy to be That Poster