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?

The clue is in the word school "holidays".

@Lmnop22 your husband is an utter cunt.

Sorry didn't see your post about him until after I posted.

Hope you get it all sorted, but yes definitely postpone your back to work date if you can. Give yourself a bit of breathing space.

Just keep thinking I’ll drop my DS off on the first day and they won’t have his name down and it’ll make him feel left out.

Well you won't drop him off will you. You will be going in with him?

I know and I don’t expect someone to sit in the office all summer unpaid just to respond to me. I thought maybe someone might monitor an inbox from home once a week or listen to the voicemails by calling the answer machine from home and respond to the urgent ones or something.

I am obviously not suggesting that every member of staff ought to give up their holidays!

Our primary school wouldn’t even take reception kids in the breakfast or after school clubs until after Xmas. Be warned- regardless of how used to nursery being 8-6pm. I set up a childminder who would cover both ends of the day and she was amazing gave my DDs both dinner too on my long days. Ask around the other parents if you can what they do as you will probably find yourself in the minority looking for full wrap care well I was a couple of years ago. I hope it goes well for you and you children.

Reception classes don't usually start until at least a week after the rest of the school opens - they have to do all the home visits before children can enter the classroom - so there's lots of time. Try not to worry. If you have the place they will be expecting you.

Not all schools will have several Inset days at the start of September, though they will generally have one.

I’d find the school Facebook page and put a

‘Hi-I’ve got a last minute space for my child at x school and haven’t had a reply yet from the office as they are closed over the summer. Can anyone tell me what the settling in/home visit/stay and play dates are and also if anyone has any information about wraparound care, that would be really useful. Does the after- school club take EYFS children til 6pm?’

You’ll get some replies (maybe even from school staff who will be avoiding checking emails but would see a post on social media) and will know asap what the situation is with wraparound. The one at my children’s school didn’t take reception children and closed at 5.30, so if that’s the case, best to know now. You can also ask if anyone has any recommendations for a nearby childminder or private wraparound company.

Of course teachers get paid during the holidays!! They get paid 12 times a year.

Of course I’ll go in with him, I meant we will turn up at the school and go to the office and he won’t be on the list of new starters.

Obviously I haven’t been told which of the reception classes he’s in or which teacher because I’ve had no communication from the school so then we will be standing their waiting around for someone to find out where he’s supposed to be or if he’s even been enrolled whilst all the other kids are being taken directly to their predetermined classrooms and teachers.

If I can’t get in touch with the school to ask about anything, why am I to assume that the council have successfully communicated to the school that they’ve offered a place to my DS?

Your expectations are unrealistic.

A child who can cope with 8am to 6pm playing in a nursery with similar stage peers cannot necessarily be expected to cope with an hour of breakfast club, transitioning to 6 hours of school, transitioning to 3 hours of after school club in the same way. Not least because the wraparound is full of enormous, raucous older children up to 11 years old, charging about. Many don't take reception kids at all.

You don't "drop off" a reception kid. They are brought in one at a time with the teacher and TA welcoming them. A parent or childminder will wait with them in the playground or outside the gate until it's their turn, depending on school layout.

Most people at our school who needed wraparound kept on their nanny or childminder that provided pre-reception care, for at least the first year. We'd used an 8am-6pm nursery and were totally stuffed. It was a nightmare juggling it all. If you can put off returning to full time work until at least the end-of-october half term you'll have time to get something sorted. Can you use accrued holiday time from maternity leave to reduce your hours to school-friendly start and finish times for a few months? Can you and DP stagger things so one of you does morning dropoff and the other collects?

Are you expecting to drop him off at 8am and collect him at 6pm on his first day?

There’s a difference between ‘paid during the holidays’ and ‘paid for the holidays’. Teachers’ pay does not include holidays but is divided into 12 equal monthly payments.

There is obviously a difference between getting paid ‘for’ the holidays and getting paid ‘during’ the holidays.

Teachers would not be be answering any emails sent to the admin email address about uniforms or starting dates anyway

Does your school have a website? Ours is a small rural primary but they use a council payment gateway for ordering uniform and paying for activities and breakfast clubs. They have their own school app for sending out “letters” and important dates. Usually there’s inset days before school starts as well. I hadn’t a clue what start date etc it was either as my son never went to the nursery part, but straight to reception class. I’d just got the acceptance email from the council in April and then nothing. I had to ask on the village Facebook page and also got given a 2nd hand school jumper from another parent. I turned up on the day (minus a drink and bit of fruit for morning break as they hadn’t told me that bit - all primary schools kids here get free school dinners so I just didn’t think). They didn’t give him back and say he wasn’t on the list at least 🤣.

You might want to read the OPs updates about her particular circumstances?

I understand why you're nervous with the no confirmation of acceptance. I would be the same! However realistically you accepted in the time frame so the place is yours. Someone will be in before term starts

Obviously I haven’t been told which of the reception classes he’s in or which teacher because I’ve had no communication from the school so then we will be standing their waiting around for someone to find out where he’s supposed to be or if he’s even been enrolled whilst all the other kids are being taken directly to their predetermined classrooms and teachers.

I think you are catastophising here-clearly this won’t happen because no child will be starting on Monday 2nd September as it will almost certainly be an inset. You will go into the office/phone the school on that Monday and find out that he is on roll, be told his class/classroom/started dates-maybe they will even tell you to pop in beforehand to meet them.

As others have said, staff will be back a few days before the term starts, it's a busy time, getting all the admin sorted as best they can before the term starts.

I would suggest calling the school every day late August/early September until you get an answer. Explain your situation, that you are new to the area, your husband left you with a small baby etc., lay it on a bit thick and ask if you can go in and talk it all through with someone to find out about staggered starts, wrapround care or recommended after school clubs. We had ones that weren't on the school premises, run by private companies, but they dropped the kids off in the morning and collected them from school in the afternoon.

If you can avoid just turning up it might be better as the person best placed to help you might not be available right then.

You’ve been offered the place by LA and accepted it…..yes you have the place!

Uniform…..look on the school website, all info will be on there with regards to uniform policy and where to buy if they have to wear the school badge jumpers etc

Breakfast/after school club…..look on the school website, info about wrap around care will be on there including how to book in, timings, how to pay and if they accept childcare vouchers/tax free childcare

Are you going to put a post on the school Facebook page , @Lmnop22 ?

As both a parent and teacher, this is often the fastest way to get answer when the school is closed.

They get paid 12 times a year. Their pay is for working 190 days a year (whereas a full time job is paid for working 232 days per year). It's divided into 12 equal chunks to help with budgets etc but they are not paid for thr holidays. A school secretary job will be advertised as a salary of £19,000pa pro rata but the actual amount will be significantly less because of the unpaid school holidays.

Uniform: look on the website for the suppliers info or get on Facebook to ask parents, and ask for any other info they've had. You could also arrange playdates so your kid can meet some kids in their class.

Wraparound care: look on the school website for the providers info, or get on Facebook to ask parents.

Send an email to the secretary email: "Hi, I hope you had a great summer. I know you'll be busy on your return but we've just moved to the area and I'm having a bit of a flap. Please could you let me know what the plan for starting is? I'd also like to know how to book after school club, thanks".

The inboxes are sometimes quietly monitored over summer 1-2 times a week for urgent/safeguarding stuff (my sister is achool admin) but the staff are likely to be doing it in their own time, without being paid. A chatty, friendly, apologetic email acknowledging that they are ridiculously busy might garner a response, an aggressive, overly professional or sternly worded email with probably not have the response you hope for!

Try not to fret OP. We moved our DS to a new school for reception in a new country where we didn’t know anyone and so hadn’t a clue how anything worked.

Thankfully, there were plenty of kind people who helped us get sorted although I was late collecting DS on his first day as I misunderstood the info and thought he finished at 2pm but it was the first day and they finished at midday.

Luckily we were only about 20 mins drive away when his teacher rang us asking where we were. 🤦🏻‍♀️🤣

They are on holiday they are not your personal assistant's

He wasn’t in a nursery he has been in a preschool which operates on a breakfast club, school day with planned lessons leaning phonics, reading, maths etc then an after school club and he’s coped with that for a year. He is also one of the older ones as he’s 5 in a couple of months.

The term drop off was flippant, obviously I will be taking him into the classroom etc.

I am self employed so don’t accrue holidays and my ex left 6 months ago when my DD was 5 days old so this year looks completely different to how I thought it would and I’m trying to sort out doing it all alone.

Perhaps I’m being unrealistic now and I know it’s late in the day but until recently I thought I would have a partner helping, be able to juggle it together and I had a place booked and sorted at the reception in the pre school he was in last year where he’s comfortable and settled already, where we already lived and where we had breakfast and after school places sorted.