Staged/part time starting of school is unfair?

[FurierTransform]

My DD has just started reception.
The school she's attending have this system where the children don't all start on the Monday full time, but have 4 x 2-3 hour sessions, spread across 2 weeks, to 'ease into it' before attending full hours.

AIBU to think this is totally ridiculous?

I'm sure many people have had to take 2 weeks holiday from their work to bridge this gap between their children finishing nursery, and actually starting school full time, so potentially now will have to forgo a summer holiday, or work over Christmas etc!
Luckily we have flexible jobs so have just about coped.

Seems so ill thought out and inconsiderate to families with 2 working parents.

DD has just started school, they did a half day finishing before lunch, a half day finishing after lunch and then a full day. Seemed OK. I think stretching it out over weeks is a bit too slow!

Different routines work for different schools.

It could depend on the class size, staffing ratios, the setup in the local preschools.

There may not be evidence in the form of a gold-standard randomised control trial, but clearly there will be a sufficient reason and experiential evidence of the benefits to the individual school, or why would they bother doing it this way?

Schools are not childcare for parental convenience and most parents I know accept that their working life needs to be flexible and that it will come secondary to their children’s education.

We did all of that with planned transition, in groups, working with families and local childcare providers...in June/July!

Perfect in readiness for school for the child. Great in developing relationships with parents and local providers.

If there were unsettled children it gave us chance to provide individual support ( social story type book to be shared more visits, parental choice about a part time place in the short term in September)

Schools will always do what works best for the children. School is for education yet parents seem to expect to run similar to a nursery setting where parents have more choice. It's not nursery, it's school and you have to fit in around school now not the other way around

When you have zero childcare options and need to save your annual leave for school holidays, it is a big ask.

I could get on board with one day on, one day off to have a smaller class. I can’t fathom why they are doing that with 2 hour sessions. It’s the double whammy for us that is the killer.

next week I have one day where (fortunately) I can work from home where I drop both kids at 8.30, pick one up at 1 where she’ll be watching tv and then going back to get the other one at 3. It is a massive pain. I am tempted to put them both into after school club but feel that would be frowned upon. If I’m lucky a neighbour will take them for an hour in afternoon while I’ve got calls.

In previous years our nursery would have had them back for the odd days but they are now full until 2026 so have no room to accommodate at all.

It is absolute nonsense these days. I live in Scotland and all P1s start full time from day one mainly as nowadays the majority of children will have been in nursery since age 3 and a lot will have been in private nursery for much longer days. No need for any phasing in.

"Different routines work for different schools.

It could depend on the class size, staffing ratios, the setup in the local preschools.

There may not be evidence in the form of a gold-standard randomised control trial, but clearly there will be a sufficient reason and experiential evidence of the benefits to the individual school, or why would they bother doing it this way? "

It would be very interesting to know. I expect it is done this way because it has always been done this way and enough parents have coped to not make a fuss - nobody wants to be 'that parent' before your child even starts.

Interestingly none of the schools in my area do more than a couple of days of settling in but the area has a very mobile population, little family support and crazy house prices so most families have two working parents.

One school was known to have a long settling in but numbers were dropping to a point where the school was going to be closed so as a last resort they appointed a new head who set up a pre-school and limiting settling in to two days in the first week.

We had this and it was awful!! He had 1hr 40 min sessions for 6 weeks. I took two weeks holiday to work part time for 4 weeks, he did nursery 8-12:30 and then I picked him up to get him to school. Husband then took two weeks leave to do the other two weeks. Nearly killed me especially with no family holiday for us thanks to the arrangements. Also cost me a fortune as there was no nursery funding as he was deemed to have started school. Hope you make it work

@FurierTransform

Our school does a similar phased start where half of the children do mornings & the other half afternoons for a week or 2 & then swap, before then all easing into shorter than normal then eventually full days.

It seems to some people to be unecessary & inconvenient etc. which we honestly do appreciate but some of the children are only just 4yrs old & a fair few have not been in a full time Nursery setting so it DEFINITELY helps them transition to the long, tiring, structured, very different school environment & what's expected of them.

However, crucially, when only half of the year group is in at any 1 time, it allows the teaching staff to really get to know all of the children & start to build individual relationships with them, which is VITAL on so many levels & surely what you want as a parent - they're in the care of these adults for the majority of their waking hours, 5 days per week.

And, for the record, being a Primary School teacher these days is most definitely not bloody 'cushy'!!

I went in full time from day one, but then I started the term after my fifth birthday. That was at a time when most mums didn't work, or only worked very part-time.

I think a week part-time is fine, but when ds started school, the summer borns had a whole term of it. Goodness knows how working parents are meant to manage that.

We had three weeks as I mentioned above, so I did a week, DH did a week and my mum came and stayed for a week and covered that.

Schools are not childcare for parental convenience and most parents I know accept that their working life needs to be flexible and that it will come secondary to their children’s education

I very much doubt that - or at least, you obviously have very wealthy friends who don't have to work to pay the mortgage, pay for food etc.

Most us have to work for a living, so work comes before everything, bar medical issues.

My ds was one of the youngest, was only just 4, and did half days for maybe half a term. I was very happy with this as he was an only child and so young I think he would have been totally overwhelmed.

Agree, working parents often struggle with covering 12-13 weeks of school holidays, inset days, strike days as well as children's illnesses and wanting to take leave to see plays/sports days etc
Adding weeks of part time days on top of that is really tricky

YANBU it’s ridiculous.

When mine were that age they did have a staggered start with new kids joining every 3 days - but once they were in they were in full time. Just as well because I’m a high school teacher and can’t take time off in term time!

Most kids these days have been to nursery or daycare of some sort so really think it’s a bit outdated

My DC's school used to to staggered starts, but changed it so all the kids come in full time from the first day. Apparently there's less confusion for the kids and the vast majority settle in quicker, having an established routine rather than faffing about doing one thing one week and another the next.
It's better for the parents, and the teachers.

It should be the other way round, ie full time available but if you have a child who is not used to nursery or full days then an option for half time available. My DiL had to take several days off last week to facilitate the “easing in”, which DGD didn’t need as she’s used to morning school and afternoon nursery
Legally that is the correct way round and it's clear in the school admissions code.

The School Admissions Code Says that children are entitled to full time from from the start of reception.
Parents have the option of part time and phased starts up until the point where the child reaches compulsory school age (term after they turn 5).
Once a child reaches compulsory school age they should be accessing a full time education, whether that's at school or otherwise (eg EOTAS, home education).

It is a pain for working parents and I think all the different ways different schools do it is a bit odd such as a the longer and longer each day doesn't make sense. My DC's school did it where the younger born kids did the morning session and the older born of the year did the afternoon session for a week and then it changed to normal.

But as others have said, school is not about making parents lives easier for work, it's about the children and what's best for them.

This is the crux of the issue - if schools felt that staggered starts/shorter days were the best start then nobody would have an issue with it if it was standardised so that parents could access alternative childcare when their child wasn't in school, but because every school does it differently it's impossible to access consistent childcare as the provision just isn't available.

Like I said earlier, DD started school in Spain and they have a standardized schedule where pretty much every school starts off with "morning only" (aka 9am till 1/2pm depending on if they stay for lunch or not) for every child from reception to sixth form ... this is purely practical due to the heat etc (hence it also being morning only in June too) but it also means that wraparound care can be standardised.

So if a parent works 9-6, school is usually 9-5 and then you'd have your child in wraparound care or extra curriculars from 5-6. In September/June you still work 9-6 but your child is only in school 9-2 however all wraparound care/extra curriculars start from 2pm till 6pm to cover the gap of no afternoon school.

Some places offer the same provision in September/June as the rest of the year IE structured activities/classes at set times that you have to book and pay for as with the rest of the year they just have sessions available from 2pm as opposed to 5pm; some will do the structured activity for a set time and then free play for the rest eg your child is at the English academy from 2-6, they have 1hr of English tutoring within that time but the other 3hrs they are just allowed to play/relax etc in a large group with the other kids; and others are literally just "we will supervise them from 2pm until 6pm but there will be very little by way of structured activities beyond a snack time at 4pm".

The key is that because the school schedule is standardised those ASC provisions are available to everyone because every childcare provider (whether school run, external providers using the school site or external providers with their own site) knows childcare is needed from 1/2pm in September/June and 4/5pm October-May and so set their schedules accordingly

This is the crux of the issue - if schools felt that staggered starts/shorter days were the best start then nobody would have an issue with it if it was standardised so that parents could access alternative childcare when their child wasn't in school, but because every school does it differently it's impossible to access consistent childcare as the provision just isn't available
Agreed.
If it's deemed to be educationally better to have phased starts then it needs to be standardised nationally with co-ordinated provision of wrap around care for the duration of the standardized part time offer.

That's unlikely though because the government is very clear that the legal entitlement is to a full time education from the start of reception.

The reason that it's a mess and parents are scrambling for a patchwork of childcare arrangements over several weeks is because each individual school is doing their own thing, whilst often failing to tell parents that the children are legally entitled to attend full time.

My suspicion is that these schools don't tell parents that full time is the children's legal entitlement because they know many parents would take them up on it and then they'd have to support transition by adapting the classroom and school day.

If all these 4 year olds are already in fulltime nursery can't parents just alter the leaving date so their place is still there for however many weeks the settling in takes?

You have to give a term's notice my my DS' old notice (and it cost £1500 a month). £4500 to facilitate a staggered entry to Reception just isn't an option.

Old nursery, sorry.

Brave comment but true! The fact is that whatever schools do some will complain about it.