To think primary transition days aren’t much help if you work?

[Transitiondays]

Arghh. Three primary transition days, two with pick ups at midday and one full day but obviously finishing around three. I’m guessing this is standard but very difficult to manage!

Thank you, I will check. I think it will be fine to be fair, it’s a lovely school. Just does have the assumption like a lot of places that either one parent doesn’t work or that there’s a team of available grandparents!

Take annual leave? Which is for things like this?!?! It's far enough ahead that it can be sorted.

Dd is a summer born who had been in childcare full time since 8 months old. The transition was a week at home with me on unpaid leave while the autumn and spring borns had their days, then a week of half days with me taking half day hols.

She was ready for school at start of term but regressed in those 2 weeks.🤨

The OP works in a school and can’t just take annual leave.

I sympathise - DH and I are both teachers and although our DC are well past this stage, things like this were hard to cover. See also, first day of school, things like sports day etc. Given the time of year and the fact your child is at nursery ordinarily, could you recruit a local Y11, Y13 or university student to help out with getting your DC to and from the half day sessions? There's time for your DC to get to know them before the visit days and although the hours may be a bit unusual for babysitting, it may offer a way forward. We did that sort of thing when ours were younger and now they are teenagers, our DC have done this sort of babysitting for others.

I agree OP. My DC starts school in September and will manage a full day as they are in preschool near full time now even on their first day was in 8-6 so I don't think they do need a phased start. It is hard to plan around with work especially after you've just navigated the summer holidays.

I completely agree OP. Mine had lunchtime finishes until October half term having been at nursery FT. It was just disorienting for them. I used to have to use my lunch hour to transport them from school back to nursery.

How are you intending to manage school full stop if organising some time off five months in advance is tricky?

Every parent knows this is how school starts. If your employer has no flexibility with annual leave you have a right to parental leave for things like this.

EVERYONE - remember you can legally send your DC’s to school full time from day one without a staggered start.

It’s not in everyone’s best interests - parents and children- to do a staggered start

June and July are not five months in advance, and I’ve already put things in place for September. As you would know if you’d RTFT! And that’s not an annoyed reply, it is faintly amused, faintly exasperated. The comprehension skills on here …

And you don’t have a right to parental leave: you have a right to ASK for parental leave. There is no obligation for it to be met.

Parental leave can be requested but not necessarily approved for the time you’d like it and especially not for those working in a school like the OP.

I sympathise op and I am a teacher myself. Don't feel guilty. In the long run whether your ds has attended all of them or not will make little difference. There will be kids there who haven't had much experience of pre school or nursery who will perhaps need more settling in time. I would not worry at all about friendships in these sessions.

If your child goes to a nursery that feeds to the school they may be able to help, especially if they’ll be doing any wrap around care for you.

They are a pain. For my oldest I was just at the end of maternity leave with my youngest so that was ok. When my youngest started he didn’t start at all until something like 15 Sep (he was already 5 by then!) and wasn’t in full time until about 26 Sep. I ended up taking some unpaid parental leave - it’s the only time I’ve ever done that but it felt like exactly what that leave is designed for.

The school got lots of feedback that year that it was really hard for working parents to cope with and the next year they scaled the transition right back and had them all in full time by the end of the first week!

Putting the issue of the thread aside for a moment I do think this needs emphasising as a lot of posters seem to think that it’s as simple as asking for some time off and calling it parental leave and that’s that.

This is a really impractical and un useful comment to be honest.
We live in a world now where two income households are needed and working days are usually 9-5/8-4. You can say it’s not childcare but ultimately that’s where children are while you are working, and if you don’t have them in school then you’d be berated for that.
the school system was created when there was one parent at home at all times which is now quite outdated

If one parent stayed home the whole day while child in school in case they were ill or for pick ups etc then how many is that out the workforce?

whilst I agree as parents we need to arrange the childcare for outwith these hours I don’t agree with comments like this to try make working mums feel even worse

Read the OP?!?! She's a teacher. No annual leave. Doesn't matter how far ahead it is. Many schools simply won't allow time off for stuff like this.

I understand the ‘school isn’t childcare’ argument, but unfortunately, the Universal Credit system very much thinks it is. So you are expected to work regardless your situation. If your husband dies, you live in a completely new area and don’t know a soul and if like me, you haven’t got a grandparent available.

It’s so hard. I’ve had a sick child at school and it took two hours to get back for them. Things like this could mean unpaid leave for weeks leaving people (usually mums) in food poverty.

You just can’t plan for life sometimes OP, I get it.

It was blindingly obvious the OP was a teacher a few posts in. So she’s someone well versed in putting the children first. Only teachers don’t get to put their own children first so much!

I honestly can’t remember if DD did any summer days before she started school. Didn’t really mater has half her nursery class went to that school anyway.

I thinknparents and some children suffer because their children have been in nursery full time and are then back to partial days which seems pretty stupid. For the individual child it probably is, but it's about large groups of children coming into a new space, learning routines etc and it allows the staff to get to know the children better.
At the school I worked in we allowed
10-2 first week,
9.30-2.30 2nd week and
full time third week,
HOWEVER they could come in full time from week 1 if they wanted, but we were a small school of 96 kids from R-y6 so had very small numbers.

DHs school has 60 per year and that's a lot to settle, lunchtime is a nightmare!

It is hard for parents BUT as pp say it is for the kids .

They don’t do them here.

My DC had a play at a choice of session times in the 2 weeks before kindergarten started. We then brought them to the first day (8:20am), and said goodbye at the door, returning at 2:30pm to pick them up.

For primary school, DC went to a play/visiting session the week before Prep classes started. School started the next week, and DC was dropped at the class room at 8:30am, picked up at 3pm, from the very first day.

I thought that was usual?

No worries, they said it was so everyone could focus on the transitioning children or something like that. Luckily DH was working from home so I could leave DD with him.

Edited as I missed they were for summer term - just dont go. I don't think they will be adversely impacted as they'll likely forget everything from a few months before.

I was going to come back and admit I committed the cardinal sin of posting before getting to the end of the thread. Although you may have received different responses if you put more of the key information up front.

We missed any sort of open day/parents day/transition days before the actual start of school. It didn’t make a difference.