Reception staggered starts are overkill?!

[SMLSML]

My little one starts school in September, we had our first meeting at the school tonight 😊 question... How on earth are you meant to cope with the staggered starts if you both work full time?! She won't officially start until 17th September, all other days before then are half days 🫠 she's been going to childcare since she's 1, she'll be so confused not going more than two hours a day for two weeks 😅 not to mention I have no idea how you make it work with childcare, chuck on top of that I'm meant to be away with work the first two weeks of Sept 🙃 how on earth are parents meant to work around it?! Just seems crazy to me she's not even properly in for half a month. I get all children are different but surely it should be optional?! All suggestions welcome 😅

My kids found it harder with staggered starts. They just wanted to get in. And found it more tiring having a weird routine that changed daily for 2 weeks.

Can't believe they actually still do this. I had to keep my son in nursery for longer and him miss school days as part time was logistically impossible with work.

It’s unnecessary and against the Admissions Code. Tell them they’ll be in full time from day one. Personally, I’d be very skeptical about a school that told parents this was the only way. It’s outdated, outmoded and they’re essentially breaking the law. What else are they getting wrong?

That’s crazy OP!! My kids did two half days (one morning, one afternoon) and then they were in. They adjusted fine!! I think it’s probably easier to just get in there and get used to it. They’d been in bloody nursery since they were 11 months old like 🤣 2 weeks of it is insane!!

This is bonkers. Where I live children start (compulsory) school between the age of 2y9m and 3y8m and it's full days (8:30-4:30) from the second day onwards.

What's so funny? Before I had children, DH and I thoroughly researched the local schools and childcare, how it all worked, what hours they'd be there, transitions, etc. That meant we could plan our own lives and careers accordingly to ensure we could fit in with school, not the other way round. It's common sense, surely?

Oh yes. When most people start trying for a baby they definitely research Reception start times in 4-5 years time. It’s top of mind. I also remember looking into what GCSE’s my child might take when I was a few months pregnant. Always pays to plan ahead😂

OP, DC’s school did this staggered nonsense. With DC1, our childminder helped with wraparound. She had been at the pre-school attached to the school for a year and knew almost all the children in her class so didn’t need to settle in but wasn’t given a full start date until the third week in September🙄When I had DC2 I politely refused and he did FT hours from the start.

You will get responses on here saying you are BU because the rules are there for a reason, the school is not there to provide free childcare so how dare you expect your child to start school FT straightaway and “this is why I left teaching…parents are so entitled”

Parent of the year goes to.....

Of course I did all the research, things change 😅 this is the first time this school have done extended settling in. When I had my first child I had a different job so this one is now more demanding, lots of factors have changed ☺️

DH took some days off, then DM came to stay for a week. Either of those a possibility? Days off between you? Even if unpaid?

Well yes, we did, as did most of the other parents I know. We also ensured we had enough savings for every possible eventuality, university, disability, etc.

I find it very odd how people think it's OK to bring another human into the world without knowing they can provide for them, have the time for them etc.

Legally they are not allowed to do this. You can tell the school your DC will be starting full time on the first day of term. Contact your Local Authority if they complain. I am a primary teacher and all the kids start full time from day 1 unless there are special considerations.

it's completely ridiculous esp for children who are used to much longer days in nursery from an early age. I took 2 weeks annual leave and we didn't go away over the Summer. Was really shit.

You don’t need to do that unless you want to - you can send them full time from day one

Totally agree OP, and it’s so annoying when you know kids at the next school over are in full time and you’re still stuck with 2 hours! Our village school has a long drawn out process, we have parents ask to go full time every year but the headteacher always says no, so unless you want to start the kids education by upsetting the school you have to suck it up and use annual leave/childcare.

How did you plan your careers to have so much extra time off in addition to the actual holidays?

We started DT’s full time from day one - we wanted what was in their best interests. You’ll probably find that other parents are planning on starting from day one. The majority of both of DT’s classes opted out of the staggered start.

My older DC did this. I teamed up with a couple of other mums and we all covered a couple of the shorter days by using toil or leave and none of us had to take it all off. Was a complete faff though and DDS found things like starting or finishing at lunch utterly baffling. The school did say it was for the teachers to get to know the children better before they started full time.

My youngest just went to school, no faff at all and it was better for all of us. Although COVID meant that he experienced a lockdown after a few weeks so that didn't go smoothly either....

How come you had enough annual leave to cover this additional time as well as school holidays? We weren’t aware of any childcare which could take them to and from school for random hours on different days. Their nursery certainly couldn’t as they had filled their places and didn’t often a ‘take and fetch’ from school option

This is about your kids not you.
They are transitioning - it's a massive change of location, people and peers at a new stage in their lives.
They need the staggered start to thrive.
Completely different to moving to another room at nursery.
The teachers also need to get to know them and assess them for a baseline standard. They need to see how they interact and how they are coping.
You can't do that with 30 overwhelmed kids in a classroom.

But surely in the time between falling pregnant and a child starting school there was the possibility of change?

There is no need for staggered starts. It's very much a head teacher preference. All that needs to happen to upset your careful plan is a change of head at your preferred school or even a change of class teacher.

Childcare can be supply and demand. My early morning provider went bust one year after my child started school.

A school down the road just announced its closure.

Both me and dh have been made redundant during my child's early years.

My friends husband died when her youngest was 9 months old.

Many years later, one of her main phrases is 'this wasn't in the plan'

DT’s didn’t do a staggered start - or the majority of their Reception friends. They thrived on routine and a staggered start would have been unsettling.

When we looked at schools for my eldest one had "settling in" where it strated at 2 hours in the middle of the day and they'd gradually add 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at the end! It seemed like a logistial nightmare for all involved and confusing for the children!

The school he went to just had 1 week where children were in either morning or afternoon, then week 2 everybody in full time - as far as I know none of the kids heads exploded

What’s your plan for exam years? I’m assuming you will know when those are and that in exam season all routines go out of the window, so you’ll have looked into the timings, school schedules, revision weeks, study leave periods and when your child will need you then? You’ll know all about admissions, gcse options, ucas process? And have you decided if your dc will stay at school for gcse/past year 9, as I’m assuming you know they have the opportunity to leave secondary programs in that year and move to alternate provisions?

or, maybe that’s too far in the future because these things are constantly changing and the timings and processes are different literally year to year - so even parents on their smallest child who have gone through the whole provision before regularly have the goalposts moved on us.

If the teacher had 30 new starters all day on day 1, with no idea which 10 are going to cope fine, which 10 will be ok with a bit of gentle encouragement, and which 10 are going to need more significant intervention, the result would be an even larger number of vulnerable children being let down by and excluded from the state education system. For some children, a gentle start is vital. I know your child is used to full days in childcare but are they used to being in a class of 30 with only one adult and very little 1:1 interaction? If you are 100% sure your child will need no individual attention to help settle in, then you do have the right to insist that they give your child the full time place they are entitled to from day 1. They won't like you for insisting, but they can't say no.

As for how - well most working parents organise either for one parent to take those weeks off, or for a grandparent to come and stay, or will pay a childminder extra to do the extra school-runs at odd times. Even if I was working full time and had outsourced the actual pickups and dropoffs I wouldn't arrange to be away from home with work for the first few weeks of any child's transition into a new daily environment of any kind. They need their mum at such times, even if only for a cuddle at bedtime.

It isn't though for the kids going, all of them are in the preschool attached to the school, regularly go in the main school hall and attend the after school club. It's also only a class of 17...