One and half form years

[speedymama]

Can someone please explain to a novice the advantages and disadvantages of reception years that have one and half forms.

DH and I will have to choose schools for our DTS in November and we have 3 local schools which are between 5 to 10 minute walk from where we live.

My first choice (5 minutes walk) has no breakfast or afterschool club and so can no longer be considered. The second choice and third choice do have these clubs. However, one of them takes in one and half forms in reception and I honestly do not understand this. A mother at Sunday School tried explaining it to me but it made no sense. She thought it was not a good thing though because children could up end repeating what they had learned earlier in the year.

I would be grateful if someone could enlighten me about this.

TIA

No help on the actual question, but re breakfast/afterschool clubs - these don't suit every child anyway, so seems an odd reason to turn down your otherwise first choice school. Have you looked at cms or explored what options the working parents at that school use? Also I belive that all state schools will have to introduce wraparound care over the next few yeasr, so again if it is your first choice then I would think carefuly about other interim solutions.

From my experience if a school takes in 45 pupils rather than 30, then you end up with some mixed year classes along the way - so you will have possibly a Year R, a mixed Year R/Year 1 and a Year 1 class (covering 90 pupils in Reception and Year 1. Or the school could actually run three class mixed Year R/Year 1. So your dts would in effect be in the same class twice, though with a decent teacher they should still be progressing. They should be progressing according to ability on literacy and numeracy, and in terms of other tiopics then I would expect that the school plans the curriculum over 2 years.

Sorry re the childcare bit - I know it is a small sample but of the working parents that I know, the majority have had to choose alternative arrangements for their children over the last 2 years.

dd2 (5) is in yr 1 in a mixed form in a small village schooll - it's made up of the whole reception class, and the younger half of year one. dd2 is a late August birthday. How it works in our school is that they work very much to their ability so it has made little difference in terms of what she's learning - some of the children who are doing well in numeracy and literacy, like dd2, go up to the next class for those lessons. Or otherwise the teachers set them harder work.

It does mean that she has a rather more playful , colourful, reception-like environment than the average yr 1 classroom. There's a lot of fun and games. but she seems totally happy with it.

as for the before and after school care, I totally agree that's a priority for us. it makes life so much easier.