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?

Yes you don't have to agree to a staggered start if that's causing anxiety OP

Best of luck with getting things sorted.

On the school website will be a calendar, usually the first day at least is an inset day so all staff in but no children. The office will be manned on that day going forward. The website will have a lot of information on it, uniform, school day start times etc. Get all your information from there first. They will no doubt be in touch about your child's first day.

Don't drop him off on the first day. It'll be inset a few days before and staff will be in, contact them then or pop in, although all staff including office staff are likely to be in safeguard training on the very first morning and reception won't be staffed. In the meantime time buy general uniform from the uniform list, trousers and polo shirts.

They probably won't have him start the first day so be prepared to take the day off but will organise an initial meeting and tour of the school, give you your welcome pack and meet your DC if they can't fit it in during the holiday. After this meeting I'd go to the school shop and pick up jumper, book bag and pe top which are likely to be logo'd

Staff will be checking the safeguard email address all summer which is likely on the school website s you could try emailing that rather than the general office one.

At our local primary, the teachers visits the children at home in the first week then staggered starts.

Sure, sure, but if your kid is the only one not agreeing to staggered starts, it will be even MORE confusing for them as they will feel like they are in two classes (morning/afternoon kids will be different) and they will just repeat activities. Better to go with the flow as it's only a few weeks of their lives per child.

I can't believe any parent in England reaches the first term of Reception without knowing they will need to arrange extra childcare (grandparents , annual leave, childminder, whatever). It's true all around the country. OP thinks she's working FT returning from mat leave from week one of Reception. That's insane.

Your child is entitled to full time education from the term after their 5th birthday. Not from the beginning of reception.

Reception kids never actually start school the same day as everyone else. For most schools, the Reception teachers spend the first week or two doing home visits to each new starter so that the child meets them for thr first time in their own home as a visitor. Then there will be a phased start which is organised differently for each school but is often a period of half-days with half the class before everyone starts full time.

The school staff are not paid for the summer.
Yabu to expect them to work unpaid, or to expect taxpayers to pay for someone to be available in the summer just in case there are urgent queries.
You'll get the info as soon as possible. If it then takes you some time to get things sorted once you've got the information that's something everyone will just have to live with.

I agree. The BC and after school part is a worry. Rather than trying to get in touch with the school I would be contacting childminders and investigating other wrap around provision.

There's a very slim chance the school wrap around will accept your child, but considering you're so reliant on the care it's better to have a plan B.

I think this is the sort of thing I wish they would tell me because the term dates on the website don’t mention this….

I think I’ll just try and push it back now and then I’m covered either way for a couple of weeks. Best case scenario I have two child free weeks during that time!

I would have a look locally at before and after school care, we had a private nursery do school drop offs and pick ups.

The internal school breakfast and afterschool clubs didn't start until a few weeks into term time, weren't guaranteed to run as it depended on teaching staff availability and after school was only until 4pm and neither took children until KS1.

On their website there might be a link to their uniform supplier or there might be a Facebook group selling uniform off so you’ve got something in to start with.

They might not have picked up the email yet to say there is an additional student. Keep trying but you can also usually see the INSET days on school websites and if you ring, they might be able to meet with you briefly/ give you any paperwork you need to fill in.

I understand it’s stressful but it’s not the usual route parents go about. They would have to pay people to staff the office.

The only school staff likely to be all year round are the premises team and possibly IT services.

Staff will pop in and out during the holidays so you could always send an email but honestly most of this info will be on the website, and if you need to go in on the first day and fill in some paperwork from the Welcome pack and ask a few questions it’s really not a catastrophe although bear in mind it will be busy and a bit of patience will be appreciated by the office staff who will be run off their feet.

The only school staff likely to be all year round are the premises team and possibly IT services.

Staff will pop in and out during the holidays so you could always send an email but honestly most of this info will be on the website, and if you need to go in on the first day and fill in some paperwork from the Welcome pack and ask a few questions it’s really not a catastrophe although bear in mind it will be busy and a bit of patience will be appreciated by the office staff who will be run off their feet.

Oh behave! I'm sure the OP didn't plan to move at the end of the summer. Surely every adult knows that moving can be a saga that takes months and months (it took a year for us to move and my DC was the same age as OP's) and then everything happens all at once.

Door shut, horse bolted etc. but you really should (and could) have done you due diligence before during the last term when the school was open, find out about ASC etc. However:

Don't panic, it will all get sorted! It's not uncommon for school staff to come back and find there are new kids on roll like yours, places shift around usually into the start of the term. they are used to it and will sort it out. They want the best for your DS and will make sure he has the same great start as all the others coming in to reception.

The LA have confirmed the place so I wouldn't worry about that. I also wouldn't worry about what someone else has said about waiting lists, LA making a mistake etc - you can go straight to the top of a waiting list if you're nearest geographically in catchment and they allocate by distance to school, it's not as simple as who is at the top gets the place and you're at the bottom as you were last.

Uniform you can sort during the term, they won't be fussed about that.

Best to make arrangements to be available for the first 2 weeks of term rather than relying on being able to sort out After school club etc. ie speak to your employer about extending your absence eg by using a/l accrued during mat leave.

Staff will be back in from next week I bet. Do not use the contacts for safeguarding, that's a ridiculous suggestion and you will start off on the wrong foot with them for sure.

I organised my mat leave to end on the second week of Reception knowing that the first week might be settling in and wanting my DS to have a transition.

I had a 51 week reception provision booked and paid for in my old area in a private school and he’s my eldest and the eldest child in my family so I didn’t research how other Reception classes worked in other areas.

Then his dad left us for another woman when I had a 5 day old baby and I’ve been scrabbling around frantically trying to sort out nursery, moving house, moving city and enrolling DS in reception whilst having a very small baby.

So that’s how an adult manages to reach adulthood in England without having realised that sometimes receptions have a few weeks of staggered starts and disruption at the start of term. Hope it’s nice up there on your high horse knowing everything 🙄

Do you know if there are before and after school club places? Ours are heavily over-subscribed, my son's going into Y1 and is still some way down the queue for places. It was a huge shock at the time, we use a childminder but got her booked the spring before he started.

Fingers crossed they do have places, but you should probably plan for them not to. Also what's your plan for holidays? Our holiday club doesn't run much - only two weeks over summer and a few days of the other holidays.

Also yes, I know lots of children who started school last year in our city, and everyone had at least a week of staggered starts. Really tricky with work but we'd saved lots of holiday to cover it.

Yes I agree! I need to sort out some stuff with the office and I got a bounce back email saying I won't be looking at my emails until 2nd September. By that point it's too late for me.
Really frustrating. And I work in a school too. We do rotas during the holidays

Sorry your DC's dad turned out to be such a spectacular cunt. Speak to the pastoral team for extra support when DS starts.

I had this dilemma when I moved quickly in August, DD was in year 2 and no schools were open.
I chose one that was the closest and seemed the best (no car) and popped a letter through the door explaining my situation.
The lovely headmistress called me up when she was back in(a week or 2 before term starts) and invited me for a chat and look round and that made the decision.
Although it was 15 years ago the letter worked as it was seen rather than lost in a sea of emails.
I'm sure you have a place but won't hurt to contact the school when they are back in for reassurance.

and the council offered me the place a couple of weeks later. I accepted.

It's OK then, no?

The staff usually come back first (there will be a few inset days) so I'd assume you can contact the office then.

Reception is generally a staggered start but this looks different for every school. My school have kids who were in the preschool in first, then a few days later another 5 kids and a few days after that another 5 kids etc. They don't do the horrible am / pm staggering and by mid September all kids are in full time. But yep you need to have this info.

After school club and breakfast club are bookable through an online system at my school and this info isn't released until school is back in session.

I'd definitely, definitely look to extend your ML. There is no way you'll be able to settle one child into nursery and another child into Reception and have a smooth transition to being back at work. It's too much.

They never do breakfast or afterschool club for the first week anyway

Email may be worth a shot - depending on the size of the school, I know the primary my kids attended the Head checked the school office mailbox during holidays periodically as he replied to one I'd sent for the admin staff (and got a reply from me about "why are you working on the holidays" - but I know the Head very well!)

Otherwise, the school calendar will be on the website - or if they use the local authority dates, that'll be on the council site and the first 1-2 days back will be INSET/admin days where the staff will be on site then to answer phonecalls etc.

Worth asking on local FB groups about logistics such as wrap around care in case it's an external provider (in which case you can contact them separately).

I know it's hard - we did a school move for my kids and one child's place wasn't confirmed by the LEA until after the schools had closed for the summer, so we had this limbo thing going on as well - as I recall, because she'd not had transition days, we popped down during the INSET day and the Head showed her around and then she went in early the first morning to find her feet in the classroom before her peers got in.

My reply was to this:

I am happy to buy the uniform - really need to sort out breakfast club and after school club though so was hoping to speak to someone.

It’ll be difficult to sort with work at very short notice