To think SOMEONE should be contactable in the school office over summer?

[Lmnop22]

I am moving house this week to a new area and local authority. my DS is due to start reception this September.

I was unable to apply for a reception place in the new area until I had a date to exchange contracts in order to prove I was in the very small catchment area for the school I wanted.

I didn’t exchange contracts until mid July when the summer holidays had already started. I immediately made the application for the Reception place and the council offered me the place a couple of weeks later. I accepted.

Then nothing. I have had no response to my email accepting the place. I have called the council and they say their part is over now and I’ll “hear from the school” but the school is closed over summer and there are no staff. When I told the council this, they said “oh yeah there won’t be anyone in until September now”.

So do I have the place? Do the school have my DS on the register for September? What uniform etc do I buy? How do I organise breakfast/after school club provisions?

Am I being unreasonable to think a member of staff ought to monitor emails and/or voicemails over the summer and communicate with parents in my position?

Id say however that phased entry is starting to get pushed out. Our school did away with it.

OP I hope you've got this all sorted out by now but I'll just remark that the schools here go back next Wednesday and when we passed our local primary yesterday, the car park was full so obviously staff were there, though whether that included office staff, I don't know. People tend to forget that things don't happen in exactly the same way, at exactly the same time as they do where they live. So it might be worth continuing to phone each day but, as I said, I really hope you've already had your mind put at rest. Good luck.

In every school I've worked in the only people NOT on term-time only contracts are Teachers and the school Business Manager.

Our Business Manager will be in during the holidays, but she'll be in her office working not sat at Reception manning the phones. Teachers will be popping in to get their classrooms ready and do other bits but again they won't be answering the phone. It would make no financial sense whatsoever to pay a member of the office staff to work over the holidays just in case a parent in OP's position should happen to call. It's hard enough to recruit and retain decent people as it is, I don't think we'd find anyone willing to pay for childcare in the holidays so they could come and sit in the office waiting for the phone to ring.

Most schools have inset the first day back, this is a good time to catch someone. As others have said I would buy a school jumper, you can sort the rest of the uniform once everything is confirmed.

Oh interesting. I wonder if private schools are different,...

I have worked in Finance in an academy trust looking after a group of schools. I had a year round contract and the finance offices were based in one of the schools. Apart from very senior people in the trust, though, we were the only ones not on term time contracts. The building got very quiet during the holidays as it was just us and the Chief Exec!

Not necessarily. My HT won’t even be back in the U.K. until 31 August. We are part of a trust so don’t have Business Managers any more. I work in the office and will be in school on Monday 2nd while my colleague is at another of the schools doing training and on the 3rd we will swap.
No one will be in our school on the last week of the holidays as our caretaker is on his own family holiday.

Schools all operate similarly but differently - some offices are micromanaged by the HT who will also check admin emails - our HT trusts the office staff to do their jobs so doesn’t have access to admin emails. Some answerphones can be accessed from off site - ours is antiquated and can only be accessed in the office.

It certainly is in every school I’ve worked at.

Firstly I’m sorry your husband was a complete arse and that you have had such a hard time.
if it was me I’d be losing sleep until the inset days with the uncertainty. I would say his school place is ok with the council though and and your pressing issue is the before and after care. I would be looking for a childminder as a back up.
Also on the Facebook site maybe message a couple of the mums directly for some advice. I’m in school Facebook group of my village primary still. My children are now in year 12 and 11 however if another mum needed help I’d try and point her in the right direction!
Are there any school age children who live near you, would you feel confident politely speaking to mum?
Most of all good luck ! In a few weeks you’ll hopefully be all settled. Then in the blink of an eye you’ll be putting your children through GCSE’s it goes that quick!!