Primary School Starting Dates - R they joking? How to change?

[Crouchendmumoftwo]

Hello,
Hello!
Im self employed and so is my husband and we have to work for our clients etc to pay the bills. I wrote to the school to ask if my son could be in the first wave of kids going in as we are working and we just have one granny who works.
Gobsmacked to see on the letter today his starting date is 17th September and then that is just till 12! He doesn't go full time till October the 4th!!
HA HA HA - knocks head against wall.

Blooming marvelous.
My husband says my letter probably annoyed them and that is why he is starting so late. My daughter starts in nursery too there - who knows when she starts - November - doing one hour a morning? They both attend full time nursery. My son will be nearly 5 (November) when he joins so not the youngest in the class.

Just wanted to find out if anyone is in a similar situation and is it worth going to the school to have an informal chat to see if they got the letter and if there was anychance of getting him in on the first wave! Probably not!

It all seems very odd - such a late start yet we have to work and earn money - what do people do?

Thanks!

Glad it worked out for you 5madthings.

My ds started today, pick up at 12 for this week, then 1pm next week then fulltime.

Poor thing was knackered from traipsing up and down to school at beginning of day, at 12 and again at 3 to pick up his big sister.

Thanks, I've just rattled off an email to the LEA. Tbh it's probably too late for me now and my elderly mother has stepped in to help out on this final occasion. I'd still like to broach it though as a parent governor - it's like this unwritten rule that everyone moans about but daren't mention to the head, especially parents new to the school, in case they're labelled as difficult parents. That doesn't particularly bother me any more, the headmaster knows to head in the opposite direction when he sees me approaching so I've no reputation to uphold!

Maybe not for all, but many children benefit from initially starting school mornings only. School can be very tiring for young children.

I understand that it may be inconvenient, but these are the type of things to be taken into account when choosing a school. Also, there will be many other times you may have to take time off, e.g. ill children, school plays, sports day etc. I sometimes wonder why people have children as it sometimes seems that they are almost treated like a nuisance and always have to fit around their busy parents schedule. Makes me feel sad for the kids TBH.

Please, don't feel sad for my kids as they're gorgeous, confident, loving and loved children. For some of us living in the real world where in order to provide a decent standard of living and demonstrate a good work ethic some of us have to work. I don't have the luxury of a wealthy husband or family and I would hate to have to rely on benefits when I've spent years training to be a nurse and therefore also doing a job with a social conscience. It's such a clichéd statement to accuse working parents of treating their kids as a nuisance when in actual fact all I'm doing is seeking to find a balance. If I truly thought my children were benefiting from a staggered start and/or evidence based research could back this then I'd happily go along with it. In reality and in my experience my eldest child was one of the first children to start in his year, he started happily as he'd attended the school's nursery the previous year. However he was unsettled by the batches of new children that were dropped into the class every few days. My middle child, who started the very next year just couldn't understand why he 'wasn't allowed' to start school with everyone else. He doesn't cope as well with change so the anxiety the starting school caused was exacerbated by being one of the last children to start. He too had attended the school's nursery as well as walking with his brother into school each day so was entirely comfortable with the school environment. The last one isn't that worried tbh but I think that if school's are going to stagger entry which seems to be quite unpopular then it's reasonable this is done in consultation with parents and that there's evidence to support this as the best way of introducing children to school. One other point about 'choosing' a school - all our local schools have some sort of staggered option. I'm not sure how much choice of schools you have in your local area but where I live the local schools are all expanding to try and keep up with demand therefore there is no real choice. I have no qualms with taking time off if one of my children is sick and needs their mum, I also make sure I attend every assembly, parents consultation and sports day so no, I think that your comment about my children being a nuisance to me is unreasonable and unjustified.

Sorry just skimmed through this but I think you are talking about the school my children go to in Crouch end. The staggered start is a bit of a pain for most but for working parents then must be especially hard. I would try and talk to the class teacher, maybe the deputy head or the head and see if because of your particular circumstances your child can do full time from the start. I am pretty sure I have heard of this being allowed in the past. Cant see why having one extra child in the first week of intakes would be that much of a problem and sounds like your desperate! Good luck

Our school only does a week or two part time and then straight in full time. Also they are happy to arrange things to help if their are work issues etc so it says in the info pack. I am a SAHM so never needed to enquire about it but I thought it was good that they take it into account. So I assume in some schools a child can go straight in first day full time.

I am watching this thread with interest. DD starts next September and wouldn't go full time until October with the staggered dates. We simply do not have enough annual leave to cover it and the preschool holidays and I think parents should decide what is best for their child. Parents should be given the option to give their child a staggered start date or to start full time on the first day. We know our children best and what they can cope with. I intend to make a nuisance of myself to get DD stary

to get DD started full time. And if more parents did this perhaps schools would be more considerate.

Another Richmond resident here - they do mornings only for the whole of the first term. Fortunately I was on adoption leave when dd1 started. It takes absolutely no account of the needs of working parents, but IME schools don't - this is just the start...

It's ludicrous.

I can arrange for DD to go to the nursery she currently attends after school, in the holidays and for inset days until she turns 11. The nursery do a pick-up from 5 local primaries at 3.15pm.

However there is no-one who can do a pick-up at lunch-times or mid-morning or whenever. We don't have family nearby or friends who could step in and no childminder is going to take a kid for only a few weeks with odd drop-off times.

The kind of jobs my husband and I do are extremely busy in September and October and no leave is allowed at that time except for emergencies. If she is ill then obviously we will have to take a day or two, but that is very different from weeks of half-day this and half-day that.

I plan to send DD full-time from the first day of term next year - I believe she's legally entitled to a full year of school - am I wrong?

It's ridiculous. If they're too tired to cope with full days it's because they're too young and the curriculum is wrong.

Hello it's me again! Just reading all your posts thanks. Nice to see another Crouch End mum on here. Well Ive been working this evening for the last four hours, my eyes are sore! Im having to work nights as in the day we have no childcare so Im sitting in a park with my son bored to tears as all the kids are pre schoolers, its chilly and breezy and Im trying to look on the bright side. Or earlier I was playing Crazy Golf with him trying to get into it. He is desperate to go to school! We went past it the other day and he said PLEASE CAN I GO IN. Tomorrow we have my daughters nursery teachers coming to visit... JUST LET HER IN! I want to scream she is desperate to go (just half days) and is not starting to the 24th! She is used to going to nursery and is sweet and well behaved. The kids are driving me nuts as they are sick to death of each other too. We have lego land this week, have been to the ParaOlys twice. My son starts next week woo hoo, but just till 12 for a week - arrrgh and then another week till 1.00pm and then...
It's half term, I love my kids but this is like some kind of torture as Im desperate to work and keep my clients happy and my kids are desperate to go to nursery and school, two weeks for teachers visiting houses seems so excessive and then all the half days - it's like they have no understanding of working parents. Count me as the lucky one too as my son didnt go to nursery at the school he is one of the first to be going in! Yes one of the first so the other poor blighters are going in for their half days at the end of September.... I know these days will never come back - THANK GOD, Im counting the hours and hoping I still have my clients by the end of this! How do people manage I ask ya!
Im so jealous when I see a uniformed child on Facebook which the status saying First Day! I want my first day no and a whole one at that! Good luck every one, rant over, how are you doing? x

its not about not wanting my kifs around. i am actually a sahm parent but have four other children and school runs, clubs etc. the primary school.is half an hour walk and i dont drive. thats already two houra round trip at least. ds4 has two brothers at the primary school and i would spend over three hours of my day walking backwarfs and forwards and forwards if he did part days. ds4 would be knackered with that much walking. the sessions they wanted the children to do were only three hours long, so by the time i dropped him off ang got home i would been going out again in an hour! impractical and it would have meant my youngest would have had to miss out on the groups i take her to.

ds4 was used to 9-3 at pre-school, so i know he is fine with full days and he would have been upset at doing part time. if he gets too tired i will give him a day off.

and re looking at schools and taking this into account when choosing? what choice? most parents get tjeir catchment area place and my experience has always been they dont tell you of the staggered dates until after you have a place!

regardless legally they have to iffer a full time place and are acting illegally if thus isnt an option.

Dikkertjdap- school can be tiring, however it's far more tiring to go home at 12 (then the next week 1.30) and then walk back again for 3 to pick up siblings.

Our local school does this and we as a parent group tried to persuade the head to change it to no avail. In the end many just chose to force their hand and sent their children full time after a week or two, which was a no win no win in my opinion and it was unplanned and disruptive. With heads getting full funding from day one and having plenty of notice to change or at least give an option to parents who disagree with the staggered system, it was their duty in my opinion to plan for this occurrence.

I have 4 children and with the first two the staggered entry for 7 weeks was a complete disaster, I wasn't working at the time but it was extremely negative, they were very unsettled, didn't know what was happening, were all over the place. Therefore with my third I chose to force the school's hand and did 2 weeks, I think this was entirely reasonable. What deeply annoys me is that most parents have fed back to the school that this staggered system is very disruptive and upsets the children, but the school refused to listen or at least attempt to change things and take into account the feedback. This is not example of parent-school parternship.

As per the point made about choice, it would be great to have choice, all our local schools have 31 children in Reception, and are maxed out to the limit, you do not have a choice of school unless you live on their doorstep. Of course if you have the money you can choose private, but this is clearly not an option or a desirable choice for many.

Loving dikker's post! Seriously, dikker, are you a wealthy SAHM whose kids are privately schooled? Because for most of us there's little real choice of school - we go for the nearest acceptable one and hope that THEY will choose US. And working isn't really a choice - ok it is, but the only other option is for you and other taxpayers to pay for my kids.

Sure yes, I could have chosen not to have kids. Maybe only wealthy people should have children. But in the meantime, we struggle on trying to make it all work. And I think it's probably good for the kids to be part of that, watching their mothers have another life in the world and learning how grown-ups keep the show on the road.

Trouble is, school's can't win. If they have all the children in very quickly, parents complain about crowding in cloakrooms, not being able to say goodbye to their pfb properly and not being able to talk to the teacher about concerns. If they stagger the starts, then parents complain about not having child care!

Schools that stagger starts don't do this to inconvenience the children, they do it because they believe it provides the best way for very young children to settle into a strange environment, have additional staff time and attention while they are settling and hopefully cause least stress to the child.

Our Ofsted satisfactory school that my kids used to attend had staggered start dates. September- December birthdays started full time. Jan-March birthdays could go part or full time until Christmas then had to go full time. Apr-August birthdays could go part-time until Easter then had to go full-time. I think asking patents which they prefer is a better system. For every child needing a gentle start, there will be another desperate to go all day. It was unusual for anyone to go part-time until Easter but quite a few went for the part-time until October half term option due to physical exhaustion.

Attendance percentages at this school are not the best but nobody would bat an eyelid if you said that your child was having a duvet day as they were tired.

Have you got room in your house to have a short term au pair just for Sept/October?