Anyone not take up all 5 days of pre-school place?

[ManchegoandChutney]

Just that really. I work 4 days. School place is 5 mornings. What happens if I don't take DS in on my day off sometimes/always? I realise this might be controversial, and to be honest I'm not seriously seriously considering it, but am curious about it. It's not statutory education and we do some fun stuff on my day off work at the moment and I am a bit sad about losing that if he goes to pre-school (of course we would still have afternoons but logistics mean that this would rule out many of the fun things that we do at the moment! Particularly in winter when it goes dark at 3). Am curious as to whether anyone does this and whether they have a formal arrangement with the school or not.

A parent did this when DD was at school nursery. The school nursery didn't like it - the reason given being that they often do activities that build over the week, so the child was missing out. Not sure how the child actually found it :)

If you regularly (as opposed to occasionally) only attend for 4 days the nursery will lose funding - which they will not be happy about especially if they could have given the place to someone who would have attended 5 sessions.

Depending on your child, they may also question why they are not going in, when all their friends are!

I only used 4 of the 5 school mornings in nursery because I worked on a Monday and couldn't get any childminders/ nurseries to pick up from school on a Monday so he had the full day at nursery. School did frown a bit but needs must.

I only ever did four with dd and then ds but we were allowed to book as few or as many as we wanted at our pre-school and a mixture of mornings/afternoons/full days so I'm not sure it's the same.

When my DS first started at preschool I only used 3 days, then built it up to 4 then 5 the term before starting school.
The preschool were totally fine with this though and many others did similar.

Don't the school get the full amount of budget per child on the books on something like the last day of September? My understanding is it doesn't vary with attendance or transfer if that child leaves in October or increase if new children start in October etc. I am also of the understanding that numbers for attendance only count from yr1 when all children are over 5.

I am in Wales so it may be slightly different.