Extra hours - do a longer day or an extra morning?

[ManoloChooBoutin]

Would appreciate advice on upping my DC's hours in nursery.

DC just turned 3 and in September will go up to pre-school. Currently does 3 mornings a week at nursery, from 8 until 1. Looking for thoughts on whether it would be more beneficial to do an extra morning session from September (so 4 x 8-1) or to make one of the days a full day from 8 until 6 (so 1 x 8-6 and 2 x 8-1) or whether it makes no difference!

Starts primary school September 2020.

Thanks

I'd do an extra morning. 8-6 is a long day for little ones and, while many children do long days and are fine, if you don't need to do a long day for work reasons, I wouldn't.

As a nursery teacher I’d always say the kids get far more out of a few shorter sessions than one or two long days.

This is really helpful thank you. We were thinking the same but the pre school leader suggested a longer day was better in terms of preparation for school.

In my experience (in a school nursery) most of the children settle into longer days at school without much trouble. Does he/she stay at nursery for lunch? When is his/her birthday? I guess nursery isn’t attached to school? I would say the benefit of staying for dinner, experiencing the dinner hall and lunchtime staff (as my full day children do) is the benefit of a long day.

Also your DC won’t be starting at 8 and finishing at 6 in school. They’ll be starting at 9ish and finishing at 3ish. Probably only doing an hour longer than their short nursery session.

We had a similar rescission to make, DS will be going to school September 2020 too. We felt more mornings was better,get him used to going more often, as school will be 5 days a week.

Thanks. He's just turned 3 this month so is young in the year.

The pre school is attached to his current nursery - just along the corridor. He already has lunch, and breakfast there so is experiencing eating. The pre school has a separate dining room and they have two sittings so he'll get to experience that too.

To clarify - it's a nursery and pre school at his current place; no proper school attached.

They mentioned a school preparation course that they'll run next summer so might do extra morning from September and then increase hours for the prep course in June.

That sounds like a good plan x

I think the most important question is do you need it for childcare and who else is available to do the pick ups and drop offs?

We use nursery for childcare (not for the experience of going to nursery) and both of mine have done 9-5 from 9-11 months. Initially 2-3 days a week, building up to 5 days a week by around 2-2.5. My 17 month old is currently in 4 days a week 9-5.

I think that works perfectly well. I wouldn't want to do like 7-6 as that would be too long, but I don't need to because dh and I share the school runs so whoever is working the shorter day can drop off/pick up. If you are just doing it to have a bit of a break yourself for a few hours, I would think about how you need to use that time. Do you need it a few hours a day every or most days? Or would you rather save full days for going out and doing activities that you couldn't squeeze into an afternoon? I think personally I'd like to have some full days when we could go and do things. I wouldn't want to be running to and from nursery for only a few hours every day, but it depends on how you need to use your time. I think kids to perfectly fine with just a morning session or a full day and will adapt no matter what you decide.