Should we just give up?

[AliceAnneB]

My DS is 3.5 and has been at a Montessori nursery for going on three years. He happily settled into the infant community but when they moved him up to the main classroom last year he hated it. We worked hard to settle him but he never loved it but eventually by Christmas we had moderate success. His key worker left and this year it's the same nightmare. He screams the entire way to nursery "please no school!". He cries and cries no matter how I try to make it positive. I don't need the the childcare. We did this for him. I was hoping it would be a positive start to his education and he's miserable two years running. We love in London and chances of another nursery place are nonexistent. I put his name down for this one when he was 4 months old! So do I just pack it in?

Personally I wouldn't but I would try to get to the bottom of why he is so unhappy there.

Is it a 10 min act up for mum? Ie does he settle quickly after you leave?

Does he hate the beginning of the week, my son went through a phase of the Tuesday blues but loved Wednesday and Thursday.

When does he start school? If its 2016 I'd not want him to think acting up will get him out of attending school

Personally, I'd take him out. I took my child out of an extremely oversubscribed (and expensive (we lost the deposit and the next term's fees!)) nursery last year after she didn't settle in the first term. There had been tears most mornings and eventually I just thought, 'what on earth am I doing this for'? It was making her miserable, me miserable, and her little brother miserable and I didn't need the childcare. Also, I thought, institutionalisation starts far to early anyway (even in Montessori). We all think we should send them to nursery because everyone else does! In plenty of other countries though children spend their first five years playing on the kitchen floor, not even attending classes (shock horror).

So I took her out and didn't really mention it again until just before she started a new setting two weeks ago. I very occasionally mentioned the new pre school if we walked past but that was it. Well, she loves it. She's settled straight away and for us this was obviously the right path.

I also don't think taking him out now will make him think he can get out of school by acting up. I worried about this and decided that the situation couldn't really get much worse anyway and it could get a lot better. I just said that that school was over and that was that.

Also, there are children who go straight to school from home having never set foot in a preschool so I wouldn't be too concerned about that side of things.

Do you know which school he'll be going to yet? I had this year's school lined up which helped.

It's such a hard choice but I knew straight away I'd made the right decision even though everyone treated me as though I was totally mad! At the very least I had an extra, fun, adventure packed year at home with my daughter. Good luck either way!

We live in an oversubscribed part of london so next years school is still up in the air. He has been seeing an ed psych for emotional/social/language delay. I'm going to ask the council if we can defer his reception start by a year although no guarantee he will get a place. We are down on a number of private waiting lists too. Our local schools are all outstanding but my worry is that he might get lost in a class of 30? But I think the state schools have better facilities and resources and I would like to be a part of the local community. I also worry because the end psch reckons he's quite bright which seems contradictory to all the delay but there you go. I feel like if I don't start him on time we will have shut the door on our local private school that's quite good because I don't think they will let you take the 7+ out of year? I don't know. I'm a rambling mess. He really could use
The socialisation but not the academic pressure. He just wants to play. They want him tracing letters on a chalkboard. I think it's the pressure that's getting him.

Do you mean the private school wants him tracing letters or the Montessori?

When and how did your DS start seeing an Ed psych? Wouldn't a SALT be more usual for speech and language delay?

How is he in other settings socially? Is it just nursery that is distressing him?

Also, if you research locally, you may find more nursery places/pre school places than you think in schools, children's, centres etc.