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!

Speak to your LA and ask them to intervene.
Ask them if you can still have your 30 hour funding for preschool for those weeks - you can't because the school have claimed it.

3 weeks is insane. I would quote the admissions code because it’s not legal. Unless is a teeny village school I doubt you’ll be the only one that’s complained either because so many families have 2 working parents these days and that’d be a good chunk of your AL gone. I imagine it’s especially unworkable for teachers. Or single parents that don’t have anyone to share the time off with. So I doubt it would be sitting on their own. Worst case I imagine they’ll go into the school nursery if there is one or Y1. My DC’s school thankfully is day 1- home before lunch, day 2 - home after lunch, day 3 - full day and for anyone that still struggles with that they can stay and they combine nursery and reception for an afternoon of supervised play.

I remember this years ago.
It most certainly was not about the children but the convenience of the school.
For two weeks the children were in for 2 hours, absolutely ridiculous and pissed off stay at home parents so much, not to mind those trying to work.
Disgraceful in my view.
Every one of those children were used to 9-1 montessori etc.

I remember doing this my kids are grown adults now !
my son it worked well for but my daughter it was to much going back and forth ! And the teacher in the end let her stay the full days because she see it worked better her just staying x

At our school they also had 3 weeks of part time, but they split the class so they had 15 in at a time rather than 30. The argument was the teacher could spend more time with each child and get to assess them and know them more quickly than when they are also crowd controlling 29 others. The part time timetable wasn't really about giving the children more downtime, it was about reducing the size of the class and increasing ratios while they were all learning the ropes.

I do think there is a grain of truth in there somewhere. However you are still entitled to push for full time.

Not all of them are going to a 1 -15 ratio though. Dgs had 12 in his class.so with teacher and TA that's a 1-6. DS had 16 in his so 1-8 ratio. Actually DSs school had a very stupid setup. All the kids with birthdays before 1st Jan did 2 weeks of half days. Jan-mar was up to half term. After Easter holidays birthday didn't go full time until the January term.

I'm so glad I didn't have months of using lunch break to take DS out of school and drive him to the next town for nursery every day ( birthday was Oct)

I work in a primary school. The Reception teacher and TA use some of the time at the start of the year to do home visits (usually but not always these are all done in the first couple of weeks before staggered starts begin cos there's not much time around the children being in to do the remaining visits). There is also a lot of admin to do re taking and printing photos and names to go on coat pegs, reward charts etc. labelling books, training for new pupils' SEN needs, making sure we have all medical info etc. All of this is easier to do with fewer pupils. It also means we can spend more time getting to know individual children. Also, the classes are split into morning and afternoon groups of 15 children which is easier for matching names to faces. Obviously there are benefits to the children too of having fewer children around in a new environment, but there is some reasoning behind it which basically boils down to it making the teacher / TA's job a bit less stressful at a very busy and important time, which enables them to focus more on the kids and help them settle in more.

I agree some schools drag it out too much, but they do it every year so generally have solid reasons.

I also think a lot of parents of preschool children underestimate how overwhelmed and tired the kids will get in the first few weeks. Insisting the child stays in when everyone else in their group goes home will likely confuse and upset them. We also do the same activities with the morning and afternoon groups so the kid there all day will get bored.

1. staggered starts are totally unnecessary these days
2. the school will be acting illegally if they follow through with this
3. contact your LEA immediately and if they don’t play ball, the press
4. personally, I wouldn’t trust a school that can’t even get this right. What else are they doing wrong?

I'm sure it makes things easier, but it is failing the legal obligation to offer a full time place.

We rejected a home visit as DH and I were at work and DT’s were at nursery.

We sent DT’s full time from day one as it was in their best interests (and breakfast and after school club) - they were fine - excited and not exhausted but would have been confused and upset on a staggered start.

Sounds like that school is very badly managed. Every school I’ve ever worked in has done full time reception from day one and it hasn’t been an issue 😬

Our local primary did a full term of half days for any child that was born in the winter term, and 2 full terms of half days for any summer born child. And there was no entitlement to full time from day one back then.

So I deferred DC1 and they started full time in January - fortunately I was able to hold on to the nursery place. When DC2 started I managed to find a childcare provider who would do a midday pickup. It was horrific - my happy, ready to learn eager child who had been in full time nursery and was so, so ready for school became an angry, miserable frustrated little thing who only wanted to stay at school with their friends. When winter term rolled round, the transformation was instant - the teachers could hardly believe it.

For some children, staggered starts are a disaster. And so it should be up to the parent to decide.

I had this in 1982 when my oldest daughter started school. I just assumed it would be full time from day 1. I only found out when I got there that they had assumed she'd be part time for 3 weeks. I was working full time, she'd been in nursery since she was 18 months old doing a much longer day. They backed down the same day.

That is ridiculous and confusing for DC as they will get used to only going in for 2 hours and may struggle with then being there all day together with adjusting to a new environment.

A week of reduced hours - such as half class in morning, half in afternoon (so staff can take notice of individual children), then a whole day on the Friday makes sense. 2 hours a day for 3 weeks is not really beneficial to the DC.

I agree it’s too long for transition. I think a week or two of staggered start is a good thing, but it seems pointless for only two hours. It needs to at least include a week of doing lunch then going home, otherwise they're still going to have a big new transition to get used to when the staggered starts are over.

the problem is that if you challenge it, you set yourself up as a difficult parent.

Just take them in and tell them you'll be back at pick up at time. They can't do anything.

For sure, a class of 12 definitely doesn't need it! I'm talkjng about your normal class of 30 though.

Legal or not it is done to give each child a chance to have a quieter entry into full time school. Your child maybe used to full daycare and after school clubs but not every child is and therefore a dozen or so children in the class at a time is better than 2 dozen in the one go and is much less of a shock for those that haven't been to daycare. It is also easier for staff to give more time to settling a nervous child.

I could have written this post except our school has a full week of no school so they can do home visits. My husband and I are both teachers and so have had to decline this. I’m gutted as it means dc will have to go away for the week to grandparents (no family local). Then my parents will have to come be stay for a week to help get her there for 2hrs a day and then relying on a friend to pick her up each day in the third week. 😢 It feels so disruptive for a child who has been in preschool for a year in a mixed reception/nursery class since day one last September. But new school not willing to budge and effectively the only solution they offered were that they could contact some parents to find out if they would look after her (safeguarding nightmare surely).

We had this, we insisted ours were full time from day one and the school did take them. This was ten years ago though so am not sure of the situation now.id push back again.

This is my first year in my current school so I can't remember the exact timetable and split between morning and afternoon groups, but after the first 2 weeks of term when older year groups are in and we have done home visits and most of the admin, the staggered starts only last 2 weeks, gradually going from 2 hours to including lunch, then adding another hour then a full day.

It's not going to suit every child but that's the nature of a school where there might be multiple classes of 30 in each year. Decisions won't always be made in the best interests of individual children. Sometimes you will have yo accept being inconvenienced because someone else with a different overview of the situation has a different opinion and a decision has to just be made for efficiency. Schools have to go on what works best for the whole community, so the other 59 Reception kids in my school, plus the way the school is laid out (eg can we bring the Reception children in, show them round , have an early lunch at odd times etc without disturbing the older ones) and the workload and working patterns of staff. That will be the same throughout the school years. It might not suit you and your child might be fine full time from day one, but having several children on different timetables within the same class would not work for the group as a whole.

In my last school, any reception children there all day during the staggered starts would be sent to play with year 1 and 2 while the Reception staff all had their lunch break. There wouldn't necessarily be lunchtime staff allocated specifically to Reception yet because we wouldn't be expecting anyone to stay, and it's not worth paying someone to just be in charge of a few all-dayers for an hour. The lunchtime staff there in KS1 have enough to do keeping the other children safe without spending extra time comforting the Reception kids as much as might be needed. Barring injury or tears, the kids would be left to get on with the older kids without support. Or just hold a lunchtime supervisor' s hand cos she wouldn't have capacity to sit down with that child etc when they already have a load of other kids to keep safe.

Basically, you could leave your child there all day but it wouldn't necessarily be the best thing to do even if nothing goes 'wrong.' Kid might be bored, not have / make friends etc. Would inconvenience staff which is not the best way to start that relationship.

If you genuinely want to change the staggered starts timetable, suggest a viable alternative such as a shorter period, working from a couple of hours to full time over a coffee weeks. Explain why this would be better for families and children. Complaining won't get you anywhere because schools know some parents will find staggered starts difficult. However, they also won't throw open the door to full time starts for everyone from day 1 because it is impractical and will be seen as not the best for the majority of children. Calmly and respectfully suggest an alternative and they might change it in the future. It would also be better for your relationship with the school should any problems come up in future. Complain that you don't want it for your child so the system is wrong and you will just annoy the people educating your child.

Speak to your LA and request they ensure the school offers your child a full time space from the beginning of term.

Twenty four years ago, we were allowed to be flexible with DD. Classes started a week into term - fair enough for home visits and to avoid the chaos at the start of term. All the working mums opted for full-time from day one. DD did half a day on the first day, but went full-time from day two, as I couldn’t manage to collect DS from his nursery class at noon and DD from school at the same time. She managed the full days perfectly, despite being a summer born baby. DS, a November born baby found it more challenging, but by then DS2 needed collecting from nursery at noon, so he was full-time from day one.

Push back. Parents should be allowed some flexibility. Only the school seems to be benefitting here.

This was the bane of my life when my DC started primary school. My school was one worse and did the 2 hour shenanigans for 5 weeks. Before they finally moved to a full day for the last week of the first term. When I raised it with the school they kindly suggested that I could get a child minder to cover the morning and bring them to school for the PM session. They wouldn't even change to the morning session, so I could pick them up and drop them off at nursery for the rest of the day and head to work.

I couldn't make it work, so I left mine in nursery for an extra month. I understand why this might work for some children but for those that are used to full nursery days it is such a backwards step.

We chatted to other parents and all pushed the school.

The new head agreed with us and said it was outdated when every single child in the class was coming from 15 or 30 hours a week preschool provision. She reduced it to a single week of shorter days. It was absolutely fine and the children settled in quickly.