Reception staggered starts are overkill?! UPDATE

[SMLSML]

I posted recently about how people manage staggered starts for reception... A lot of people said legally that schools have to take them full time if asked. For context my little one starts in September and will do 3 weeks of 2 hour sessions...

She currently goes to preschool full time and after-school club until 5pm. Childcare aside I honestly do think she will find it very disruptive and think we'll spend more time taking her to and from school. 4 other parents agree with me, however this is the response I've had from the headteacher... Is it even worth challenging? I totally get the gradual approach but 3 weeks feels overkill...

Just unsure of what to do and no idea how I'll manage 😩 I honestly don't believe it'll be beneficial for my little one either. Any advice appreciated!

These staggered starts seems to be getting longer and longer. Give it a few and children won’t be starting full time till after Christmas.

Ours was bad enough 1 week of mornings and 1 week of afternoons which seemed silly.

I could understand a week of upping the hours for those that did not do full time nursery which the option of full time for those who did. Monday 9am-lunch Tuesday repeat Wednesday 9am -1pm Thursday 9-2pm Friday repeat. Then full time.

https://www.buckinghamshire.gov.uk/schools-and-learning/schools-index/school-admissions/school-admissions-guides-policies-and-statistics/school-admissions-policies/primary-community-and-voluntary-controlled-schools-admissions-policy-september-2023/

check your council website. Some are better than others at being crystal clear that you are entitled to the full time place (bucks is an example)

We would really be struggling for annual leave to essentially take 3 weeks off work between us, especially when you consider needing annual leave for school hols , child illness, appointments. We've got 2 years to go, so hopefully won't be in the same position!

How though! I was a teacher, that would have been an interesting three weeks.

Yes it’s bizarre that schools do this when teachers are one job where it would be really impossible to facilitate this, but they expect other parents to. My DD has a friend who parents are both secondary school teachers. They simply could not do it. They had to insist she went full time.

Three weeks of 2 hours!
That's ridiculous!

My child's school didn't do any staggered starts thank god. She'd been in private nursery two full days a week but she was no worse off going full time straight away

Our local school started them off with a couple weeks of only 1¾ hrs per day - 13:15 to 15:00 in week one and 10:00 to 11:45 in week 2 - the reason being that then they wouldn't be arriving or leaving at a time when there was a lot of chaos from the kids of older yeargroups. They also said that one of the trickiest things to get used to for Reception kids would be lunch break so they wanted to give them a chance to get to know and trust their teacher before tackling that challenge.

There's a school near us that took up to half term to get every child full time when my DC were starting. It's a long time ago and I don't know if they've changed it now but basically if you weren't a two parent family with one parent at home or someone with local family members able to help it was practically unworkable. It looked a good school in all other respects but the protracted induction and total lack of willingness on the part of the Head to even discuss alternatives was enough to make me look elsewhere.
If I had genuinely believed that a start like that was in my DC's best interests I would have found some way to make it work, but I didn't. I think the (very experienced) Head of the school we ultimately chose hit the nail on the head when I asked her for her opinion. She said "Well yes, I guess children do take a long time to settle when they don't get to spend long enough in a new environment to get used to it." Aside from the practicalities I just don't think a long drawn out transition actually benefits most children, and having to be in multiple different settings for weeks would be highly disruptive.
i don't think there was any legislation in my day OP, but if there is now, insist on your rights. I think a call to the Local Authority sounds like a good idea if you are not making progress with the school. I can almost guarantee you won't be the only parent of a new starter who feels this way and if everyone just puts up with it things will never change, so well done for speaking up.

3 weeks of 2 hours is ridiculous. Completely unmanageable unless there's a stay at home parent, and I don't see how it benefits the child either.

At our primary school the first day is a half day, the rest of the first week parents can choose half or full days, and the second week is full time. Both of mine went full time from day 2 and were absolutely fine.

You go back and remind the head of the legislation - it’s non negotiable.

Who has 3 weeks of additional annual leave. A staggered start is not beneficial for many children let alone the stress to working parents.

Which employers are going to be giving out an additional three weeks annual leave when the school aren’t correct in imposing a particular approach.

The problem with that is it's the TERM after a child's 5th Birthday.
Technically no child is compulsory school age in the first term (Sept-Dec) of Reception Year.

@Needmorelego - no it isn't. See the reference to the legislation further up the thread. They are entitled to a full time place from the September in the year they turn 5.

We asked our nursery whether we could extend the places but they had already been filled and it wouldn’t help in the getting them to and from school at random times.
We contacted the school that we would be sending DT’s full time from day one - as did many other parents.

thats insane

outs is 2 short days with the option of full days after that (they may suggest 1.30 pick up if child is struggling)

Could you just leave her in pre-school until the staggered start is over? Might not be doable if not a private nursery and it would cost you but would be more convenient.

Oh my mistake.
Apologies.
🙂

Who would do the delivering to and from school at random times?

@Needmorelego- that’s what they want you to believe…!

I've heard of people doing that up to the first half term and then their children starting then.
Unfortunately though I would assume parents have to pay for that because any nursery funding will have ended.

We just took the staggered starts - it's quite a small chunk of their life and it was before this point about legal entitlement was so well known. DC was fine.

However she is stonewalling your point on the legalities. If you want to push this go back to her arguing purely on the legal entitlement. (Maybe a sentence on how it would suit her but absolutely minimised because this is not the territory you want to battle over.) Look up the school's complaints policy, which will be on their website, and threaten to take the next step in that which will almost certainly be a formal complaint to the governors.

For some people it's worth going to battle over. For others the line of least resistance is suck it up as a one off and don't make an enemy of the head before DC has even started. But the head should be too professional to let this cloud future interactions.

3 weeks is a lot. They're already half-way to half term by then. Crazy.

I think though, that it's only once per child throughout their whole school career that you have to do this, and they're unlikely to change it. What are you going to do if you win? Let your child take their full time place and sit alone in an empty classroom?
And do you really want to start off your relationship with the school like this?
I'd just take these remaining couple of months you have left to figure out a way to make it work, and suck it up.

This was exactly the system at the school my DG attended. Unfortunately he had been in preschool until 5:30 every day since he was 3 (and very happy)

The school would not budge on the staggered entry and my DD did a mix of unpaid leave, grandparents, friends and basically anyone who offered to help.

This resulted in a happy little boy being so disrupted he didn’t want to go to school at all and took ages to settle.

When we pushed for full time from day one, we were not alone so no sitting on their own. Education is due from day one not sitting in an empty classroom.

Yes I think it’s the very opposite of a calm start to reception. For a lot of children it will be a mix of ad hoc childcare arrangements between parents, grandparents, friends maybe (parents sharing days), maybe some paid babysitters or childminders. There’s no way it’s less disruptive than just starting school properly.