Primary offer - When are we sent details about induction and uniform etc?

[JonStark]

The 'After you've received your offer' information on out LA site says that we should contact the school directly about this stuff. Surely they will send it out to us though? Not just wait until we contact them?

Will the school think I'm nuts if I ask them about it today? I will be able to put it out of my mind for a while if I know what to expect well in advance.

Yes. Give them a couple of weeks when the date for accepting your offer has past. The waiting list might jiggle and new children offered a space do the school will do it all at once when it has settled.

Yes, the school are very busy, they couldn't cope with all the parents calling them today!

I do understand your impatience, but you need to take a deep breath and tell yourself to take a step back!

I've got a form to hand in to the school accept the place, did you get one of those? The next step for you to do is to confirm your acceptance of the place.

If you;re really keen, I'd say the best thing to do would be to fill that in and take it into the school. You might be asked to post it in a box for the attention of the school office, but with luck you might be able to hand it in at the school office, then you could ask when you get to find out about all this stuff. (The person you talk to might not know though!)

The school will be in touch once you've accepted, though, don't worry!

Thank you both. Noted, I won't contact them!

We don't have to accept our offer here, we only contact them to refuse it. Otherwise it's automatic.

I have found the uniform list on their website at least! Not that I'm going to buy it right now.

Ummm.....I haven't been told that I need to accept the place for DS, the email just said he's been offered a place and a letter will be sent to confirm, does that mean it's a done deal??

Ah x-post with jon I now know not every area needs you to accept

DD got a letter mid-May with an invitation to three play afternoons mid-June and the request to send her parents to a meeting beginning of June. I liked it, DD felt important and happy to be acknowledged.

The meeting for the parents was in the evening and I found it vital for DH and me to go together, there is so much to take in, especially if you never had a child in primary school before.

It takes a while for the school to get final figures so they don't send out lots of paperwork for people who are actually not coming. We got forms at the meeting and were asked to bring them either to one of the play afternoons or drop them into the office at our convenience.

Uniform - as you already found - is often at the website. They hopefully have a decent calendar which helps finding the Summer fair, we went to DD's school so she could look around a bit. They are normally open for the public.

I suggest you wait until at least the week starting 16th May.

The offers have only just gone out - give the school a chance.

Also, y6 SATs occur the week starting 9th May. Leadership and perhaps also the office may well be focussed on them right now.

Uniform - you won't be buying it yet anyway. There may well be information on the school's website.

Induction - just be aware that some schools do staggered starts in Sept, (so don't assume you can go back to work full time straightaway). Our reception class starts 4/5 days after the rest of the school while teachers do home visits, but then go full time. Other schools do random part time, sometimes for a whole half term.

Ours won't send anything out til mid to late May

Our school definitely hasn't set the parents info evening yet.
(I know because I asked yesterday wrt a PTA member going along.)

Ours send out a pack in late May too.

They are pretty unlikely to send much information until after the final acceptance date. We got nothing through until late May last year when a pack arrived with some forms to sign and paperwork to bring back into the school office. We then had an induction meeting for parents one afternoon in June and the last 6 weeks of term the children had one afternoon a week at school.

One thing you can do now is get your child's eyes tested before they start school.

They did a meeting for new parents for nursery and reception together in may last year. I assume it will be the same this years.

We were invited to a meeting in July which gave us info about staggered start, uniform & I think an overview of eyfs etc & the children went to the classroom at the same time.
A week or so later we got a letter through saying which class she would be in - I think they were using the induction sessions to observe the children.
Looking at the school timetable for this year it looks like it coincides with transition day when current year reception go into yr1 for the day.

"One thing you can do now is get your child's eyes tested before they start school."

That's really good advice. We discovered in reception eye checks that DS was effectively nearly blind in one eye, but we had no idea.

But better not to wait, the earlier you catch issues with eyes the easier it is to do something about them.

Both my DCs very longsighted and only picked up when DD started getting headaches in Y1. It's well worth getting an eye test as they are free for kids

It depends, I heard nothing from the school.

Eventually I got a letter inviting me to a induction session.

Still communication is poor.

I suggested they should do a booklet informing new parents of what is expected etc and what they need to know before starting. Instead of blindly finding out by trial and error.

Sorry, can I ask another question please? [can you tell this is my first time?!]

Now I know which school ds has has been accepted into [we really didn't know which school he would 'get' as our location means we don't fall into any catchment area for the 3 closest schools] would it be acceptable to email and request he attends the pre-school attached? I'm thinking it would be a good idea so it's not such a massive transition for ds come September to go from nursery setting to school setting [I think the pre-schoolers mix with reception class.....the school is tiny and only has 85 pupils in total!]

NewtoCornland - no harm in asking if the school has space in the pre school. However I'm personally not sure it's worth it for just a term. Mine went from childminder (30 mins away near my work) to school and they didn't find this a massive transition despite not knowing any of the other kids or having been in a school setting before.
I wouldn't think the transition will be an issue, especially as school is small (ours is even smaller - only 46 in total!)
Plus good nurseries will start to 'prepare' them for school during this summer term anyway :-)
So I guess overall it comes down to whether they have space for him in pre school and whether you want to move him now or wait until Sept...

Newtocornland, do you work as if so will you need to find childcare for all the summer hols if your child is at the pre school attached to the school and will
I know up and drop off fit with your working hours? Lots of people stay I their current nursery or childminder arrangements because of this.

I actually got a letter from the primary school to morning inviting us all to an open morning - how organised is that!