confused about pre school / nursery / primary

[sausagesandplantsandgoldfish]

Hello,

I know I sound pathetic here but the whole thing confuses the hell out of me.

My DS is 2 in September. He goes to a private day nursery 3 days a week while I work.

I have a primary school in mind, which has a nursery. I have been on the website and had a look online but can't work it all out.

I assume my DS will have to stay in the day nursery until he is old enough to go to the school nursery. At what age will he be going to the school nursery? Will it be full time, or does that all depend on the school? When should I be applying for his place at the school nursery (the school in mind is hugely oversubscribed [central london])? Are there waiting lists for these places?

Am I worrying about this all too soon? Do I need to take a chill pill here?

I will be calling the school to arrange a visit, so I will ask lots of questions while I am there, but I don't want to go in completely ignorant, so any help would be massively appreciated. I feel so thick!

Here children go to preschool in the September after their 3rd birthday for one year, This is 5 mornings or afternoons. I put my childrens names down at birth as it is very oversubscribed.

They then start school the year after which you apply for in the September-January before they start.

Some children stay in nursery and then go straight to school.

School nursery will be part time - if you are lucky you might get full time = 9-3 usually

The council will deal with the admissions
Best to call their childrens info service and they will be able to help

Firstly, take a deep breath!

Now, check on your local authority website the admission criteria for the primary school. It is unlikely (but not impossible) that attending the nursery has anything to do with admission to the school. Most schools do not have feeder nurseries.

Assuming that attendance at the nursery doesn't impact on getting into your preferred school, bear in mind that school nurseries are generally term time only and for school type days, or for only morning/only afternoon. Some will only take children for the maximum funded entitlement (i.e. only up to 15 hours per week). Generally school nurseries are not a replacement for private day nurseries in terms of childcare. Check out whether that is all accurate for the nursery you are thinking of though, obviously.

What most people in your situation do is keep your child at private nursery until they start school. Once he gets his 3 year old funding you should be able to use it towards those hours at nursery.

Bear in mind being in the school nursery is no guarantee of a place in the school for primary school. if they are happy in the current nursery leave them there until Primary school

Our preschool on the school site deal with their own admissions they all do here. Some areas it is done like schools and the local authority do them.

Do remember that you need to apply for a reception place even if you attend the nursery attached to the school.

And check the school entrance criteria - unless they state explicitly there is priority for children attending the nursey, there is none.

It's slightly different for different areas which is why it's so confusing!

Where I live, your DS would start school nursery in Sept 2016, mornings only (ie 5 x 3hrs to get the 15 free hours). As others have said, the applications for reception are separate so you could keep him in his current nursery till Sept 2017 if you prefer. There's no waiting list - you apply at the beginning of the year and you don't need to worry about it till then - he won't be at an advantage if you put his name down earlier.

If you choose to stay in the day nursery then you may be able to use the early years education grant to offset some of the cost

www.gov.uk/free-early-education

Frequently, school admissions and nursery/preschool admissions are completely separate.

For school, you will need to apply for the Sept 2017 intake (when your son will be nearly 5). Deadlines for applications will probably be January 2017. So some time to go yet (and earlier applications won't improve your chances). Probably, your child being at the on-site nursery school (or not) will have no impact whatsoever on your chances of getting into the school. But to be sure, do check the school's admission rules, which you should be able to find on the school's website.

For nursery school, it may be that it is privately run (though on the school site), in which case admission would be completely dependent on them. Usually, they will take children from the term starting after their 3rd birthday, so in your case, that would be January 2016. Usually, they would be able to go for 5 sessions of 3h, either 5 mornings or 5 afternoons. But some nursery schools will accept children from younger ages (2 upwards), or will accept different times (e.g. 2 'whole' days and one half day) or will accept them for more sessions (e.g. up to full time i.e. 30h) or will allow them to come only for a few sessions. That is really up to the nursery school.
However it being a nursery school (rather than a nursery) probably means they will have term time openings, and close for school holidays. Just need to be aware of that.

Finances are another part of it. From January 2016, you will get 15h for free. So if 'your' nursery school allows earlier entry, or allows you to go for more than 5 sessions of 3h each, then you will have to pay for the extra.

You don't have to send your child to nursery school. You can keep sending him to his current nursery. In which case you may get 15h free from January 2016 and pay for the rest, but you'd need to check with your current nursery if they provide the 15h 'free' or not.

Gah lots of x-posting, making my post pretty redundant. Sorry.

Hello everyone,

wow, what a response! Thank you all for taking time to help me.

So, from what I can gather, it would probably be best for me to keep DS in his private nursery (which he adores) until he starts reception.

I looked at the criteria in the school, and being in the nursery school does not automatically mean he will get a place in the school.

Also, keeping him where he is means that I can carry on working my usual hours without having to worry about term time and half days etc

So, Sept 2017 is when he will be going into reception class (he will be 5 years old)? This means I should be applying for a place in 2016? Am I right in saying this?

If this is the case, I can chill out and not really think about it for another year or so!

As he is September born, he will be very nearly five when he starts reception, yes.

Applications open sometime during autumn 2016 but the deadline will be mid-january 2017, providing things don't change until then.

The only reason to think about it earlier is if you think you may need to move house, in order to get him into the school you want. You said the school was oversubscribed, so distance to school will matter. Your LA should provide a document stating the largest distance that anyone was admitted. Though things may obviously change by then (new schools opening, changing OFSTED making the school less popular, lower or higher birth rates, etc.)

Or, if you want to get into a faith school (or keep your options open for a faith school) then you'd need to consider starting to go to church regularly... if you don't do so anyway. (If that is an option, do check the faith school's admission policy first)

Yes it is a faith school and we do attend mass weekly. The admission depends firstly on this, and then distance from home to school.

Its worrying, as the only other school in our vicinity is not where I would really like DS to end up. There is no option of moving and so if he doesn't get into desired school, we will just have to grin and bear the 2nd choice!