Talk to me about delaying school till they are actually full time

[drspouse]

DS gets very anxious about change in routine. At the moment we inevitably have different pick up times on different days (e.g. if I have to work late I get him from nursery in the later session where they have their tea, rather than the main session which they finish with fruit and then we have tea at home). He asks pretty much every day, sometimes several times, what time I'm picking him up.

I'm thinking of keeping a few extra weeks nursery with his current sessions and then starting him at the point a few weeks into term when they are actually all full time. This would mean he just had nursery as normal, then school with a single change to his new timetable. Nursery offer half days for children settling in to Reception anyway so there will be some friends there on most of his days.

Has anyone else done this? Would you recommend it? Anything else to be aware of e.g. were school hard to persuade?

He will know 3 or 4 DC from nursery at his new school and knowing those particular children they are quite inclusive so I don't think friendship groups will be set in stone at that point. I can't really see that they learn their complete new routine during the part time weeks to be honest, so I'm not sure he'll miss out on that either.

I have also slightly considered starting part time for the whole of Reception year (or the first two terms) but if we did it would be 4 full days not part days, because I do need to work 0.8 on 4 full days (work would not really be happy about an early finish.)

Your child is entitled to a full time education from day 1. I have a reception child. Last September I informed school that I would like to exercise dc's right to full time education from day 1. The admissions code makes it clear that children have this right and the office of the schools adjudicator stated it explicitly.

The head said she didn't think it was best for the children but agreed that my child could go full time. On day 1 some other parents realised she was staying for the whole day and over the course of two weeks almost the whole class was doing the same thing. If we'd followed the school's timetable then they'd have been part time for more than a month.

You are entitled to decide how your child starts school. Whatever the school says, you have the right to start your child full time or part time: whatever suits the child best

I know of lots of school ditching the gradual start . One of my closest friends is a reception teacher - she has found anxious children settle much better without the prolonged start . Parents have to say goodbye at the classroom door too (They can go in the cloakroom for first week) .

Kipper what did your DC do during the rest of the day when they were one of the few staying all day?
I can see DS enjoying the attention, but being a bit confused when all the other children go home.

Why do you not know which school yet? Places have been allocated...

Dd joined y1 for the rest of the day. She made lots of friends and as the other reception children gradually joined her in the afternoon the reception were put in a group together. She didn't notice that she was doing something "different" because to her school was just like this. She settled in incredibly well.

Galena We are on the waiting list for the school we actually want.
Kipper that sounds great. We'll definitely talk about that.

Ours is 3 days half days, then patents have the choice full time, part time for 2 weeks or at the extreme half days till half term.
As said above legally school has to take them full time from day 1. You can insist especially if its in the childs best interest. Also why should you pay for nursery when the school is paid to have them?
These starts are often historic and bear no relation to working parents or recognising most children have been in nursery or preschool

It seems obvious to me that they switch between afternoons and mornings because the routines are different, if you insist on all mornings he won't know the routine of how you pick him up etc

Why not just do full days then lilac?

(And er I would be picking him up. Not going to be leaving him there!)

I think there is a lot of logic in your plan, OP. Either find some way for your son to have the same schedule every day (whether that is through p/t or f/t attendance), or delay his start so that when he does start, he can have the same schedule every day.

Some parents find it important for their kids to start at the beginning of the school year so they don't miss all the settling-in stuff. But equally, some children do much better as the only new starter after everyone else has settled down and got the hang of the routine, at which point it will be less chaotic.

You say your child is on the waiting list for your preferred school. If he isn't offered a place there by September, you might consider keeping him on longer at nursery, if they have space to keep him on at short notice. That would save him the upheaval of starting at one school only to be uprooted and moved to another soon after.

I had to insist on DS starting full time sooner for childcare reasons. I compromised and he did a week of mornings and then went full tine. They asked me not to tell any other parents though in case they all wanted to!

If variable pick up times were acceptable to you throughout nursery then why is it such an issue for a few weeks of school? Presumably you'd still be collecting at varying time those few extra weeks of nursery. Or have I mis-understood something?
I think I'd chose for him to start with everyone else and have the same pattern as the rest of reception. Also if I were you I'd forget about 2nd choice, and focus on your school.

Do whatever you want. It's unlikely to have any lasting impact on him at all (IMHO).

I feel the school's idea of what is essential is often somewhat overstated.

Our situation was a bit different but here's what happened to us

• our son joined us by adoption and turned 4 very soon after he came to us. He was therefore eligible for full-time school but we didn't want to send him to it straight away.

We looked into deferring altogether (as he is a late summer-born) which seemed almost impossible for the school to comprehend and in the end, with professional guidance, decided to start part time after Christmas and full time after Easter.

The school were quite insistent they knew what was best but in the end agreed to our wishes and so our son integrated slowly.

For him, everyone else knowing what they were meant to be doing etc, and where the loos were etc, was a good thing. For our son to start with everyone else, and experience the uncertainties, en mass so to speak, would have been a bad thing.

I recognize our circumstances are different to most as he was adopted.

So fast forward a year and he is doing very well, has friends, is reading, is very bright and never has melt downs or upsets about going into school, (unlike some of the kids).

It is certainly not for everyone and you would need to take into consideration his needs and the situation. But for us it worked well.

Are you thinking of a different class, different teacher and children after lunchtime.? If so I agree with KohINoorPencil that's "...a HUGE change in routine." I was agreeing to the later start date not to trying out more than one class, but I am not sure where that was said?

You could just get him to go full time from the start, if easier for him.

Chickpeachick re "Parents have to say goodbye at the classroom door too (They can go in the cloakroom for first week) ." Is that at age 4?

italian I thought the OP was proposing not starting school with the other children and staying at nursery until reception was full time.

Doesn't he need practice at learning to be more flexible? How else will he get that practice? The school days are mostly regimented, but many days will be one-off different timetables to cope with. He's not going to behave any worse in the first 3 weeks than you have already managed for many months, is he?

The kids will be rapidly developing social relationships in first few weeks & success at school is mostly about having a good social life. More socially risky to start at an odd time after most the social order is fixed & he can't change as much.

Italian - after the first day at my DS's school we had to say goodbye at the gate, parents didn't even get on to the premises!

Italian my DC are also adopted as I think you know but placed when much younger so issues are rather different. I think he'd probably cope with a full term of half days but my work wouldn't! It's chopping and changing he won't manage.

lljkk I know several DCs who have had to move in the first term or two of reception. None have failed to make friends. Whichever school it is he will already have nursery class mates there. And with respect, you have absolutely no idea what his behaviour is like or whether it could get worse or how I'm "managing".
Schools don't have odd days of mornings or afternoons only. Yes they have changes in routines but he seems to cope well with things changing within the day (including moving to the other preschool room sometimes) but gets very anxious and hard to control around end/beginning of the day.
And the first weeks of school are not the time to "teach flexibility". They are the time to reassure and minimise stress.
Johnny again with respect, you don't actually know our history around school choice. You could read one of my two or three other threads to find out more if you liked. I can't do anything about the occasional change of time at nursery (other than give up work), but there he is not starting at a whole new phase of education at the same time.
Anyway, it's interesting what options people have gone with and VERY interesting that many schools don't do the extended chopping and changing now, clearly lots of children don't do well with this, not just mine (so in the nicest possible way, if you are saying this is best for all children -you are probably wrong).

lljkk re "Doesn't he need practice at learning to be more flexible? How else will he get that practice?"

I'm guessing gradually!

"The kids will be rapidly developing social relationships in first few weeks & success at school is mostly about having a good social life. More socially risky to start at an odd time after most the social order is fixed & he can't change as much."

I'm not sure at 4 they are making life long friends, some might but I think this is overstated.

LittleNelle Re "Italian - after the first day at my DS's school we had to say goodbye at the gate, parents didn't even get on to the premises!" Yikes! how did you feel about that and more to the point how did your child feel? I so hate all this, personally, it does seem totally counter intuitive to me!

At drspouse a fellow adopter, I knew I knew the name but I had forgotten!

Totally agree that what is right for some kids is not right for others. Children are all different and all have different things they need.

IMHO when schools have very rigid ways of doing things that they might say "are for the benefit of the children" I tend to feel they must be for the benefit of either the teachers, the school, or both or something else that is not a child.

Our son's school seemed to have zero understanding about attachment. It was massively frustrating and I could easily have given up and let them do things their way, even the social workers seemed to want to listen to the schools! Luckily I remember that it would be us dealing with shit in the future if our son ended up with an attachment disorder, and this knowledge helped me to stick to my guns!

I agree that the faffing about at the start of the school year helps no-one (I've both taught Reception and had 3 dc go through school myself). I think there are still some schools who haven't caught up with the fact that many of the dc starting have been used to longs days at Nursery, and the stopping and starting and changing times is just unsettling for them.
However, my opinion isn't important if that's what the school have decided to do. Your problem is, that you are hoping he won't go to the school you've been allocated. The best thing to do (if you didn't have that issue) would be to arrange an appointment with the SENCo to talk about transition. Explain the issues - take a member of staff from the Nursery with you if you can, or, at least take the name and contact details and ask the school to speak to the Nursery so they don't think you are just a paranoid parent, if he doesn't have a diagnosis of anything. Work out the best transition for him - transition books, photos, extra visits, and the settling in time can all be topics up for discussion, but of course it's likely that, if there are known issues, then the school would be even keener to extend the settling in period until they know he's comfortable.