Have had pre-school offer - only one morning and one afternoon

[pooka]

Hi all

DD will be 2.5 in January. Have had her name down for ages at an excellent pre-school. Very over-subscribed, so have been offered only a wed am and fri pm. I really am not too keen on the pm offer as she still has a very good afternoon nap, and we're busy on friday mornings, so she would be shattered, I think. So am thinking of saying yes to the am offer only. But do you think that it would be worth it? Would it be worthwhile from a socialising and preparation for school point of view? Or would I be better waiting til she's 3 with a view to getting maybe 2 consecutive mornings?
Am a bit disheartened really as she's been on the waiting list since she was 11 months, and I'd asked for Mon and Tues mornings. It's an excellent pre-school attached (but not feeding into) the excellent local primary.

I think it would be worth it to get your foot in the door so that you're more likely to get more places in the future. She'll benefit from being in a group & the educational activities, too.

Could you ask if they could swap the pm for an am slot? I wouldn't personally plan to be able to leave her alone there for a while, though, just use it as time for her to settle in & hopefuly after a while you can leave her for 15-20 minutes, building up from there.

yes - go for it - when my DS1 started at 2.5 we only did one session, and gradually increased to 4 over about 18 months.

1 session is worth it. Ds started nursery with one session a week and it was nice. It was a nice adjustment to him and good to socialise him.

Now that he is 3 he has 5 2.5 sessions a week (term time only) and this is great. He loves it. When your dd is 3 you will get state funding, which is great. Could you not put her name down for another nursery as well? She can attend 2 nurserys and when you qualify for state funding (next september I think) they will split the funding. Then if your preferred nursery havent given you more sessions you dont loose out.

Hope this makes sense!!

sounds bonkers, no continuity for her

I would take the a.m session as freakyzebra said, to get your foot in the door. She is only little and will enjoy the one session for what it is. There are always people moving/ swapping sessions in playgroups so if you express an interest in another morning session, you'll probably soon find one pops up-if it is sessional care, there'll be children leaving in July at least.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Have accepted both places. The manager has said that once term starts there may be more flexibility and dd will be top of the list for choosing sessions in September (when she'll be 3 and 2 months). We'll play it by ear with the pm session, and the manager is perfectly relaxed about that.