Is it OK for DS school to finish at 1:15pm on last day of term & require me to pick him up?!

[ChemiseBleu]

I am so pissed off with DS's school. I thought that this year they would stop their nonsense of finishing just after lunch on the last day of each term and registering them in for the afternoon but requiring you to pick them up early.

In previous years they did this on the last day of every term and I assumed that the new "tightening" up of rules re taking DC out of school would mean they wouldn't dare do it this year...

They mention earlier in the year on the calendar a picnic at 12 noon that parents are welcome too and then start gradually drip feeding into the newsletters that you are welcome to take them home after the picnic and then BOOM today - dates for July:

Wednesday 23rd Picnic 12 noon BREAK UP 1:15pm

This means extra time off work for me.

--This from the school who wrote to me before the end of the first half term with a calculation of DS's attendance after he had had 3 days off with a bug (M-W) and then been sent home at lunch time on a F after being sick in his lunch. Considering the attendance was matched against 2 half weeks and about 4 full weeks then yes it did come out at

That's the point iggly parents base their working lives around the likely scenario, the stable routine, not idiosyncratic time-table fluctuations that date back to the days when women were expected to be at home and available at a moment's notice.

I think this thread has established that it's legal; it's the norm; it's the tradition; many teachers like it, and so do students. However, if you were drawing up state school provision, now, from scratch, it's probably not what would happen. With a clean slate, you'd look for something that is a better fit with the realities of society today.

Yes and I said schools should be more understanding.

However what's wrong with the odd early finish for a school if planned?

I work, I earn more than my husband and I'm not looking forward to when ds starts school and having to perform stunts to react to stuff like early finishes. As long as I know in advance. We shouldn't however all just be working like dogs, hchildren never seeing us except for a snatched evening and hurried weekends, for what?!

In Edinburgh, we have always had a half day at 12pm for Christmas Holidays and Summer Holidays.

Also my children finish school every Friday at 12.30pm and have done since starting p1.

So it seems that finishing at lunchtime does not happen everywhere but is very common. Most schools do give loads of notice of it. For some people it is not convenient, but given the length of notice, they manage to sort something out.

It is unusual for schools to spring this on people, but not unheard of, but when they have been picked up on how difficult a position short notice puts working parents (and in fact all parents) they have stopped doing it.

So I would say again, information is power. Gather the information about dates and timings as early as possible and make clear to your schools, that the more notice of anything, the more likely you are to be able to attend. However, also appreciate that sometimes things do crop up without all that much notice. And as a working parent, expect to have to allocate some of your holiday time to things like half days/sports days/inset days. Of course the more family or friends or support you have around you, the less you will have to do this, but if you are lacking in support, you simply have to accept that you will have to use holiday for some of theses events. They won't last forever...children do get beyond wanting you to visit them at school/pick them up etc.

Ours does it too for the end of every full term. I think its the norm, however annoying it is!

So every year your child's school broke up early at the end of term and even mentioned it in newsletters - yet without any mention of things changing you thought it would?!

"I work in a very large school and very few of the full time staff have young DC."

I am the only full time female member of the teaching staff in my school (large primary school) with children under the age of 16.

Intheenddotcom - in a nutshell!

BOOM! Shock horror, I assumed they had changed the routine they have had for the last x amount of years but couldn't be arsed to check if my assumption was correct! Therefore I am extremely pissed off even though I am freelance and can adjust my working hours accordingly!