Criteria for allocating pre-school hours

[nosynorma]

My child starts pre-school in January. I have been offered various hours - mornings, afternoons, 1st half of week, 2nd half of week. For work reasons I desperately want the 2nd half of the week. I was going to attach a note when I return them form. I just wanted to know how to best influence their decision? Any ideas? Anybody involved in making these decisions? Or are they made randomly.

I work in a small preschool and the range of hours is limited. But we offer 2, 3, or 4 sessions and ask people to request which they would prefer on the application form. If we can't accommodate their requests we let them know, for example they want a Tues and Wed but we can't give them the Wed just now but can do Thurs. They can either accept or refuse. But we would keep it in mind and as soon as a Wed became available they could have it. Or if someone is willing to swap that's fine too.

It just depends on the preschool. The one you are looking at should have a policy that explains what criteria they use.

At the preschool my DD goes to, it is all done by where you are on the waiting list, so those who have been on the list the longest get to choose first. Then everyone else gets slotted in around those above them on the list. But there is some discretion for special cases. It is probably worth writing your reasons for wanting those hours on the form, but they may not be able to take it into account.

Ours tries to accommodate people's requests but, if it isn't possible, gives priority to those in the last year before starting school (3/4 year olds over 2/3 year olds).

We write to everyone telling them how many hours they can have, which depends upon the age of the child.

Those who are in their final year before school are offered 15 hours. Children newly turned 3 are offered 10 hours.

We attach a plan of all the different sessions that are available and ask them to tick the ones they would like. There is also a place on the form for them to tell us about anything that would restrict the sessions that they could accept, e.g. work patterns.

Then as the forms are returned, I allocate the sessions. Generally speaking, this is done on a first come, first served basis, but I don't inform everyone of their session allocations until the closing date for the forms has passed. That way, if Child A has requested Mon / Tue / Wed, and then along comes Child B who also wants Mon / Tue / Wed but they've specified they can't do Thur / Fri, then sadly Child A will be bumped onto Thur / Fri.

That said, this is the first year since 2008 that I've actually had to do this.

If you're late returning your form, you get what's left.

If you're late applying, you get what's left.

I try my absolute best to accommodate people's requests (and usually succeed, plus I keep mini waiting lists for specific days, e.g. currently I have three children waiting for a Monday morning to come free). However, the financial sustainability of the preschool depends upon me filling all available sessions. We are always full.

I'm a governor of a local authority nursery school and a member of the admissions panel. As we are expected to have the same kind of policy's and procedures in place as a primary, after SEN and Looked After Children, our admission panel look at distance from home to school as our main admission criteria with over subscription. Unfortunatly, time on the waiting list has no impact at all.

I'm sure they should be able to tell you what the criteria is though.