starting reception - six week settling in period

[ilovemountains]

Hello everyone,

I've seen on a few threads that all schools now need to offer children starting reception in September a full time place, in accordance with the Rose report.

However most of the primary schools we have applied to (so September 2012 intake) have a six week settling in period, with a variety of times and time periods which change on at least weekly basis set by the schools. Some of the school sessions are only one hour long! Several of these schools do not start full time days until after the October half term.

I've asked the council about this, and their response is that there is nothing in the admissions code to exclude a phased start to school.

I was just wondering if anyone knew of any official links that would state conclusively that all children had to be a full time place from the beginning of September?

Thanks for any help.

All start full days from September here unless parent requests half days for Summer born for first 6 weeks.

I think our school does half days for the first term or half term. Not sure on the details exactly yet as we only found out for sure what School DD1 would be going to this morning. Thankfully our first choice :)

With DD1 being one of the youngest with an end of July birthday, I want her to do part time for a while first. Being a SAHM its causes no problem for me but I could see how ever changing hours could be a bit of a nightmare for working parents.

I think the most frustrating thing is that there are so many silly methods and most do not seem to be beneficial to the children at all. I'm in Scotland and in my county all schools at least do the same thing so you know what to expect.

Currently it is first week mornings only. Second week stay until after lunch, then third week full time. So only 2 weeks of messing around.

I think that they do need to rethink the system though. Firstly it should be a standard across the board, and secondly they should consider that the majority of children have been to nursery/pre school and do not need a huge period of adjustment.

Completely depends on the school alas. For me was the same as Eglu, two weeks of transition - could have been worse I know.

So DS1 started Reception last September, in his case Week 1 was off entirely (no school except one-hour home visit by teacher); Week 2 was til 11.30am and Week 3 was til 1.30pm. Full-time started in Week 4. Other schools in town have different schedules, there's no consistency, or choice either - there's only one entry in September and that's it.

I work FT... Fortunately as soon as I found out I contacted my son's nursery who were willing to a) extend his FT cover by another week (I'd already given notice of course based on official school start date) and b) take him on for another two weeks on afternoon basis from 1pm. For those two weeks I dashed out of the office at midday to pick him up, have lunch then drop off at nursery. I work locally, which makes it all possible [sooo lucky] - DH has a long commute so was able to do a couple of the morning dropoffs but that was it.

I enjoyed the lunchtime break with DS but am confident he would have handled FT from Day 1 though. With all the school holidays yet to cover I really need to parcel out my leave. Yes I am now shackled to the school calendar (as is everyone) and the settling-in period is just a foretaste of the juggling that's needed for all the school holidays, and inset days, and adhoc meetings etc.

Am hoping nursery (and my employer!) will be as amenable for DS2 in two years time, depends what scheme the school will have decided on then...

DD started reception last september - just 5 days after her 4th birthday (she is 31/8 birthday). Her school doesn't do settling in periods - she was in on day one full time, but friends with children at other schools had up to 6 weeks of mixed mornings, afternoons, then mornings plus lunches - it drove them all mad. We were quite happy with the full time from the start that her school choose - at least there was no faffing around over when we had to pick her up.