Are half day starts legal? Do they discriminate?

[esxgirl]

I have been told my 4yr old starting school in Sept will only be allowed to attend school for half days for the first 2 wks which is impossible to accommodate with full time work. How can they do this when they get full time funding? I think it indirectly discriminates against working families. He is used to much longer days at nursery, but despite appealing to the school, they will not budge. Any tips?

of course it's legal
can't you take one week as leave and your child's dad take the other week as leave?
that's what we're doing
also our nursery will take them for half days for as long as we want

logistic of going between nursery and work half way through the day are impossible and we are saving A/L to cover holidays, but nice thought.

A friend of mine contacted her LA about this. They said the school were obliged to take the child full time from the start of term. Her school was doing 4 weeks of odd start/finish times and she needs to use the after school club. The school has offered to escort the children to the local pre-school but the pre-school have given priority to the new starters rather than children who will leave after 4 weeks plus she would need her escorted back again to use the after school club. She can't take annual leave as she is a teacher and her DH doesn't have enough left as most of his are set in stone by the company he works for (factory shut down). I don't know what she is planning to do now .

i think they are allowed to do this. our school certainly does

i know a couple of mums who had to either sort out a childminder or who had to come to school in their lunch hour and drop the child off at nursery for the half day (or vice versa)

i know it depends on the child, but i think in general schools have a pretty good grasp of how well children settle and half days I think, esp for the younger ones, are more than enough

I am so glad that DD's school didn't do this so we never had this kind of nightmare. Probably unsuprisingly to many parents, esp where childrn have been to nursery or preschools, all the children settled in just fine very quickly without the nightmare of half days.

Sadly I think they can do this and most do do it to some extent. I suspect it must be legal.

My friend teaches in a school where all 30 kids start full time from day one.

She hates it and now does everything she can to get out of teaching reception.

She finds it a nightmare to get up to speed with 30 children and the settling in process is more protracted and traumatic than it need be for many.

It is very tricky for working parents (of which I am one) but I really don't think it's discriminatory. It's done in the interests of the children.

DD's school did it for 6 weeks, was a total nightmare.

Rosebud - I think it done more in the interests of the teachers tbh - and I work in an infant school that does it.

So did ours, Viva - had to get a really crap nanny in for those 6 weeks and pay an arm and a leg to the agency for the privilege

Our after school club run a P1 club which for the weeks they are half day they care for them until 2.40pm (finishing time for P1) and if they have a place in after school club for when they go full time then they are allowed to stay for their place there and if they don't have a place then they need picked up at 2.40pm.

Having worked in Nursery and P1, they are very different. P1 is much more structured and takes a lot out of them because they can't just run round playing, they have to do what the rest of the class is doing. It's a different kind of tiredness.

It's not however in the interests of the children if the family is losing income or there are other huge stressors on family life during the transition.

I would hope that schools would be able to work with full-time working parents on this. Everyone wants best for the child, and a little more consideration of the wider family picture would help enormously.

unless you're teachers your annual leave won't cover all all the school holidays so can't you use whatever system you've got in place for that? like a childmnder

Do you mean the interests of the teachers in getting to know children in phased in entry and having time out of the classroom to plan learning?

Is this in contradiction to the needs of the children?

No, of course it's not in the interests of the children in the circumstances you describe meditrina, but neither is forcing children just turned 4 to spend full days in a classroom when they're simply not ready to take this huge step all at once.

I suppose i think 2 weeks of half days/days with lunch is a reasonable compromise between all at once and up to 6 weeks of partial days.

Another option would be for yourself or DH to take parental leave (unpaid)

Could you or DH arrange to take a longer lunch break for 2 weeks so you can come out and take him to nursery for the pm.

Ask the school - they may know which local nurseries would be willing to collect.

Good idea to look into options now - as this will only be the start. Aswell as school hols, schools have training days and finish early last day of term etc.

How will he be cared for outside of school hours when in full days? Or do you/ your partners full time job stop earlier than norm of 5ish?

My dds last primary school did 7 weeks of half days, with a handful of kids starting every few days. Some only started a week before halloween break. As far as I know, it's the norm round here and I work extra ( as a childminder) in first few weeks to cover it.

Other option is to start child 2 weeks late when they go full time and keep in nursery until then.

Our school does it too, although luckily my DS is one of the older children and so will start with full days.

One thing I really noticed since DS1 started school, is that there does seem to be a presumption that the mums, in particular, do not work. Short notice re; inset days, Sports Day moved at very short notice, letters about music mornings etc etc.

We are "encouraged" to stay for 10 mins in the morning with Reception children to share in an activity. Apparently, this was also the case when DS1 started, but I had no idea, as he was dropped at Breakfast Club from his second week!

Can you arrange flexible working for the first couple of weeks? Work from home, maybe? Beg a few favours off friends, or other parents who have children at the school, or even Grandparents? Once you get into it, build up a network of other mums pretty quick who can do "playdates" and are happy to take turns with inset days etc...

Have a look here to see if you are entitled to Parental leave Direct.gov.uk

I was granted this when DC1 started school. It is unpaid. We juggled between my time off, family coming to stay and nursery being able to fill in some of the gaps. Not ideal, I know.

When my nephew started at our local primary school they had an entire half term of chopping and changing between mornings and afternoons, half the class doing each. When my SIL pointed out the difficulty that this caused working parents, she was informed that it is not in the best interests of children to have two working parents (yes really).

Needless to say my son is not going to that school.

I've never considered the legality of it. I don't see why not. School never claims to be childcare.

However, it's daft that schools still do this. Just get em all in. Many schools do and it's fine.

It is a pain and I'm sorry to hear that it will put you out as a working family. However can I just add that when DD started this september she did not do full days until the week before half term!!

We both work and I could not take leave as I teach 4 days a week. So basically we had a mis-match of friends and family members who did one day each a week for 6 looonngg weeks, with me doing my day off.

I did consider leaving her at nursery for a month but we didn't think that was the right thing to do as she would have missed the start and all the induction.

Despite all of this organisational chaos I still appreciated the fact that she was only 4 and it was the right thing for her to have a proper induction period. Yes, she was used to longer days at nursery but a day at proper school is vastly different, there is so many new routines to get used to, mysterious things like 'assembly' and 'PE' stuff they know nothing about.

The school wanted her to do a mixture of mornings and afternoons (they split the class in half or something??) initially but I wrote them a very nice letter outlining my difficulties and they agreed for her to do mornings only.

Anyhow, although it was a total PITA at the time and DH used over about a weeks leave in total I still think it was worth it in the end.

Can you take some unpaid leave between you? You are entitled to a certain number of days iirc.

many thanks for so much support, I work in emergency services so am lucky to even have mon-fri shifts which I am changing to early starts to accommodate pick up from school (Lunch hrs? Don't get them). Parents deceased, other half works worse hrs than me. Honestly, its a conspiracy to make working parents, mums inparticular I'm afraid feel guilty.

It's crazy doing bitty half days for weeks on end.

Oh sorry x-posted OP. Sorry to hear that you don't have much family support and your work sounds very demanding too.

Best idea to contact the school to discuss difficulties maybe? Or get a temporary childminder who will do pick-ups if one available?

I sympathise with the sports day/music time/inset day stuff that others are saying. i try very hard to attend what I can and luckily my MIL gets about 8 weeks of leave a year, but I still feel guilty

I can't understand it either. I remember starting school, I did mornings for one week and that was it. Full days after that. DS starts September on full days, thank God.