Keep DS in nursery or move to school pre-school?

[WizzyBizzy]

What are the pros and cons of moving a child who has been in an independent nursery (which goes from 3 months to 4 years) to the pre-school class of the primary he'll (hopefully) be going on to at 4yo? From my point of view that pros of staying where he is are: hours (I work full time) as the nursery runs from 8am to 6pm. If he moves to the school I'll need to get a childminder or something to fill for half days and holidays. But a pro of moving to the school would be that he'll begin to form relationships with children he'll be at primary school with etc. But from a learning point of view, my understanding is that since both have to follow EYFS there shouldn't be much difference. Is this right? Lots of people I know are moving children to pre-schools because they say it will be more structure and more of a learning environment with trained teachers etc etc. What do you think?

if you need it for childcare then I would leave your ds where he is - it saves disruption and you trying to find childminders, holiday cover, etc

I did this with ds2. He is a sept baby and had been in his ind nursery since he was 6 mths, so i felt a change would be a benefit. he is also very quiet in nursery ( he only started speaking at his ind nursery at three and a half), finally none of the children at his nursery would go to his school, and I felt mixing with children who would go to his school would be good.

He started in Sept and I have to say it is the best decision we made. He has settled well, the staff ( and school staff) have got to know him and he is starting to make friends with those who will be in his class. I work 4 days a week, so a cm picks him up and drops him off, but this would have to happen when he started school anyway, so he has also got to know her.

We were lucky that ds1 already went to the cm, so we had that set up.

On the flip side ds1 was at his private nursery until he went to school, and only knew one other child, and settled well.

On the learning side, the pre school does 'letter of the week' which his nursery didint do, but otherwise is the same. However, it does prepare children in the way the attached school like IYSWIM, and , in hindsight, I think ds1 was at a bit of a disadvantage because he was slightly out of step witht he pre schoolers.

I left mine in the day nursery, which had a proper early years teacher, for the sake of the logistics. But you might want to check exactly what your nursery actually does with their older cohort.

Also it made no difference whatsoever to how they fitted the criteria for a reception place and I knew they were happy and settled. A further year before juggling what to do after school was very welcome from my pov too.

My children went to a nursery rather than the local pre-school and there was definitely a sense that they had to break in to existing friendship groups when they started in reception. I have heard other parents say the same thing and for some children it has been really hard. Of course for other children it has made no difference at all - think it depends on how good a child is a making friends.

I'm considering my options for DS2. He's currently in daycare three days a week as I work.

DS1 stayed in daycare until he started reception, but I dont think it prepared him particularly well for school. That said, he caught up quickly.

I've applied for the school nursery, and if we get a place I will try to sort out the logistics. I've applied for the same school
as a friend with the idea that we could share the school run plus I'll find a childminder.

But I'm not going to beat myself up - if I can't make the logistics work Ds2 will be happy at staying at daycare until he starts reception.