Should I move schools for Reception despite the drive?

[AnneMarieW]

AIBU to consider moving DD from her current pre- school, which is only a 5 minute walk away in the next road, to a different school for reception?

Due to budgetary pressures and falling pupil numbers her current school has now decided to go from originally having a nursery/reception class (of around 20-25 students), a year 1/year 2 class (again of around 20-25 students) and so on… to having a super large triple Reception/Year 1/Year 2 class of more than 30 students - with a separate small nursery/pre-school class of less than 10 students, (taught by TA’s and which DD is currently in).

The problem is that DD is quite shy and seems to benefit from having more adult attention/ fewer kids. So she gets on fine in the current small nursery class, even though it wasn’t what we were expecting it to be when we chose it - but I wouldn’t say she has any particular friends or really enjoys it.

But now I worry that going from a class of less than 10 kids (all a similar age to her) to a class of more than 30 kids with an age range of 4-7 will be a huge shock. She already often says she would rather be at home, even though she is only there in the mornings at the moment - so I don’t want her put off the concept of school when she has to be there all day in future.

No school is oversubscribed here, and all the others are about a 15-20 mins drive and have similar “good” Ofsted reports, and when I have toured them, seem to be a similar size and feel to DD’s current school (but without the super size class!). Because we live so rurally, most kids commute in to whatever school they go to - so we only know of one other child that lives nearby and walks to her current school like DD does.

If you read all that, Thank you 🤣 And what would you do?

YABU - better the devil you know. She’ll soon get used to being in a much bigger class and with much older kids. Stay at her current school with the easy walk .

YANBU - move her if you think she will do better/be happier in a smaller class with more individual attention. Potentially being happier at school is more important than the commute.

There’s absolutely no guarantee that if you move her, the school she moves to won’t go the same way in the future, especially if they are all undersubscribed. School budgets are under so much pressure right now that I suspect that the current school have done this because financially, they have no choice and need to set a balanced budget.

That said, younger kids seem to adapt better and more quickly to school moves in my experience. They’re less likely to have a really close friend they don’t want to leave behind and more likely to make friends more easily. Both my kids went to a primary where they knew no one from nursery. The school didn’t have a pre school (still doesn’t) and we were slightly further from school than other kids so went to different nurseries.

Not sure that answers your question but you probably know your child best.

How many teachers/TAs will be in this 3 year group class?

I am usually pro going to the closest school, but I can really see why you might not want to in this case.

Thank you both for your help.

They have definitely done it for budgetary reasons, I don’t blame them in that. But I suspect they will lose more students because of it, so it will be a vicious cycle…

From what I can tell, while the other schools are losing students too, according to the councils published school data it’s not to the same extent. It’s bad luck that both our village and the neighbouring village seem to have hardly any younger kids now (even the villages free “stay and play” only ever had a few kids - and they were all from further afield apart from DD 😢).

But many of the other area schools do seem to be smarter in their money saving strategies than at her current school - for instance at most of the other schools it seems the headteacher does double duty as both a teacher and a head, and/or they use more TA’s for the reception pupils with just an “overseeing” teacher to do the planning. I’m guessing that helps with finances and personally I’d rather have that than large mixed classes when kids are that young/just starting school. I don’t think it would bother me so much if the larger mixed classes had happened/does happen when she is older and more settled in school.

In the current class I think there are 2 teachers (job share so one half the week, then the other) and 2 TA’s (but not sure if they are part-time too) for this class of 33. It would be a big change from the current 1:4 ratio she has at the moment. It’s not an easy situation or choice to make, still not sure what to do.

I would personally go for the bigger school and a commute. Reception is a different curriculum to Yr1/2, I don't see how they can deliver a good EYFS experience with one teacher also teaching KS1 in such a large class. Also agree that smaller classes make a big difference at that age, it's a huge change for them.

I’d move her to a different school. 33 children isn’t a massive class (30 is the norm where I am) but there’s a massive difference between reception and year 2. I wouldn’t want my reception child in the same class as year 2s just as I wouldn’t want my year 2 in the same class as reception, they are learning completely different things.

We had a similar thing but it made no difference when they did move because the new nursery/school then did the exact same thing a couple of months later. And up out way it's very common right now for them to change so ye I wouldn't be moving my younger ones once it's there turn to go

Thank you again all for the help. I hadn’t even considered curriculum problems 😢 I’m a big believer in learning through play, rather than any formal academics in the early years - but there are no Steiner schools near us (and I’d struggle to afford private education anyway tbh).

I could hope that combining the years together might mean that Year 1 and 2 would do less of it (my preference for DD as like I said, I don’t really agree with it personally before Key Stage 2)… but I suspect it would be more likely to go the other way as reception would get pushed ahead instead. That I definitely do not want for her, so thank you for the reminder .

There’s something really nice about being able to walk to school and being close in the community that way. Plus she’ll be able to walk herself when she’s older.

I made a semi-similar choice. Our local school has 32-33 children, I believe, in my DD's year. The new school in the next village is bigger but has two classes of 20 children in her year, so much smaller class sizes. I went for that one, despite meaning I'd have to drive. My DD is in year 2 now and I haven't regretted it. She has grown in confidence so much in the smaller class.

Putting reception children in with year 2s would personally put me off. There's a huge difference between those years socially and academically. I can't see how they'd all be getting the attention they need to progess.

The class size limit is 30 for infants. How arr they getting round the law?

Easy. As long as the teacher doesn't teach them as one group, they’re legal. They can use various methods to split up the class to ensure they stay legal, and certain activities are outside the law like PE.

Thanks all, again. I definitely agree that feeling/being part of the community is important - it’s why I chose to send her to the closest school in the first place and why I didn’t even really look into other schools (until this change meant I had to).

But in terms of community, tbh unlike if we lived in the suburbs/in a town, any friends she makes at school are always likely to be a drive away anyway, simply because of the distance. As I mentioned, in our village there is only one other child close to her age - the other kids are all teenagers apart from one baby. So sending her to the local school isn’t really going to make a difference in terms of friends nearby like it would have when I was a kid.

I will admit having spend up to 40 mins a day in the car instead of a short walk will be a big inconvenience, but I work from home/flexi hours, so it’s doable. I just wish her current school hadn’t made this decision - I’d far rather they’d left the reception/nursery class as it was and just let the early years TA’s supervise it (as they now do for just the nursery children) and then she could have stayed where she is familiar 😢.

And it’s a drip feed sorry, but the new reception/Year 1/Year 2 classroom is also at the other end of the school from the toilets, as that classroom is the only one big enough to fit all the kids in. So it doesn’t seem great for the youngest ones in the new class - the old nursery/reception classroom (that DD is in currently) is right next to the toilets which makes more sense. I know she could be better at it in 9 months time, but at the moment DD has a habit of getting distracted by whatever she is doing and then having to suddenly hurry to the toilet to avoid an accident. So that’s another thing that’s not ideal…

No, that's not ideal either... DD was completely toilet trained, but still had multiple accidents in Reception, and that was very common in the class. They're getting used to the new classroom environment, and just don't think about it quickly enough. They would grab spare pants from their bag and swap around in the Reception toilets - but having to walk that distance will definitely cause more 'can't hold it anymore accidents' and more embarrassment walking through school wet.

No, that's not ideal either... DD was completely toilet trained, but still had multiple accidents in Reception, and that was very common in the class. They're getting used to the new classroom environment, and just don't think about it quickly enough. They would grab spare pants from their bag and swap around in the Reception toilets - but having to walk that distance will definitely cause more 'can't hold it anymore accidents' and more embarrassment walking through school wet.

I would move her in a heartbeat

I’d move her to the school further away. Shame, but your local school will continue to shrink and budget pressures will probably mean it continues to struggle.

I would speak to the current school and ask:

• Do they imagine keeping things the same next year? If there are varying numbers of kids in each year, there might be a different plan
• How do they manage the different ages and how often are they taught as a whole class? Can you have a tour?

I understand your concerns about much older children, although something this can also be a positive, as the older children can be calmer and have better social skills to support the younger ones. In terms of ratios, it's quite normal to have 30 in a class with 1 teacher and 1 TA in Reception and possibly just a teacher or part time TA in year 1 & 2. Having 3 adults in a class of 33 sounds reasonable and means they can potentially split them by year group.

On the budget thing, like I said before, it’s probably the only choice they have. They’re not allowed to set a deficit budget and if they’re a local authority maintained school, the council will make clear this is not an option and will need to address deficits quickly. It will also depend on how much they have if any in reserve. Schools are given a set amount per child, with some extra money for pupil premium (which they have to spend appropriately and report on how it’s spent) and special needs (money which comes with the child, and often insufficient to cover needs). If they can get more children in before October when they do the school census, they will get more money, but not until April.