Settling in before starting reception

[Misty9]

I'm interested to know other people's experiences of settling in periods for reception, as I mentioned what ds will be doing for his school and most of my colleagues were horrified: ds starts settling next week and has mon-thur doing afternoons (including lunch) and then from Friday and the whole of following week is in full time. Apparently this time will include "baseline assessments" but no other info is given and the parent session isn't until the end of the first week. Colleagues felt this was too much and also a bit pointless being before the summer holidays even.

Luckily ds is the oldest in his year but if it's too much for him I'll be keeping him home some of that second week. What do other schools do?

Ours have had weekly story/ play sessions all summer term (those in the village preschool anyway - I hope others were invited). This week they've started staying for lunch and a longer play.

September is a week of half days, then some full days before full time in week 3.

Interesting that none are as intensive as ours then! School have responded - with preceding forwarded email suggesting that the class teacher could 'put this parent's mind at rest - and the baseline assessment is about establishing whether dc can write, read, hold a pencil and know any phonemes. Well, that's a no for all for ds - so one afternoon should do it!

Seriously though, if your school had such a hard core settling this early, would you send your child for the lot?

That sounds like so much. I'm honestly not sure I would send my child to all of that..... For a start i would have to take two weeks off work because presumably no wrap around care is available. I wouldn't be happy about using two weeks leave that I couldn't then spend with DD because she's in school.

I guess I'd like to think I'd be willing to do whatever the school wanted but it really does sound like too much.

The baseline assessment sounds mad. Surely it is self evident that some children can do all those things and others can't do any. How would it help to plan for September?! If a child can do all those things that is no guarantee they won't a/ forget everything over summer or b/ learn more.

FWIW DD has had a morning, an afternoon and an afternoon including lunch. The time was spent meeting teacher and head, learbing where toilets are and playing. We've been really happy with that.

Nothing constructive to add, just joining the grumbles. When DS started he wasn't full time until the week before the October break. Thank goodness there was an extremely accommodating after school club that collected kids and took them to their venue elsewhere. Otherwise you would just weep, and have no annual leave left to spend as a family during the school holidays.

Seriously though, if your school had such a hard core settling this early, would you send your child for the lot?

In theory, I'd want to send my dc just so they had the same start as other children, and the school didn't mark my card before they even started there, but in real life I wouldn't have been able to, as, when my dc were that age dh and I were both at work and didn't have the capacity to get them there / pick them up, etc., as obviously the wrap around childcare doesn't stat until they start school. In June they are in Nursery / with a CMer who might be doing a school run at another school.

Never heard anything like it. Most kids have been in a nursery first or similar. Madness. No way they could do it at our huge school as there would be no where to put them all and parents would not take two weeks off to do it. Ours is 1/2 day for new children (either morning or afternoon) on transition day when year 6 are off site and all classes move up for the day. So 2.5 hrs. Existing FT nursery children do their transition in reception class then do activities in the hall, as nursery building is full of new nursery children having welcome sessions.
We are then FT from the start

By September DS will have been in to the school about 4 times, all about an hour. (Not counting visiting before we applied, or parents evening). They start part time for two weeks in September.

I don't think I'd send DS for that long.

Full day this week for half the class one day and half in another day by then whole class the week after on "moving up day" when entire school spend day in new classes. Start full time in reception in September.

So, update - ds LOVES school! in all our angsting we hadn't really considered this eventuality...

I've also had a few colleagues say it's a good thing to get used to the environment before the summer holidays. Back tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.

Awesome news Misty. Hope he's enjoyed the rest of the week as much.

My son did three hours this morning, will have a lunch there next week and another taster session the following week.
Then in September they start full time from get go either the day all the other years start or day after.

But son is nursery at same school (morning) and most of his friends will go there with him.

In July our son went in for a play session when parent stayed and a second play session where child stayed in classroom while parent went to the hall for a chat and met the other parents / exchanged email addresses etc. We were encouraged to meet up over the summer. His teacher sent him a postcard over the summer holidays and the teacher and TA came home to meet him in September (first week of school - reception children started a week later than the rest of school).

When he actually started school he did 2 weeks of afternoons, 1 week of mornings without lunch, then 1 week of mornings plus lunch. Then full time. He has a summer birthday. The older children (about 2/3 of the class) just did 1 week of mornings without lunch, then 1 week of mornings plus lunch. Then full time (so the whole class was together for mornings from the 3rd week).

It was a total PIA for childcare and at the time I thought it was total overkill. Especially as my son had been at nursery 8am to 6pm since he was a baby. But I do think it helped him settle in easily and also gave the teacher a chance to get to know all the children. Also, don't underestimate how much more tiring school is (even a Reception) compared to nursery.

What I do find strange is that there is no consensus between schools about the best way to settle in. At my sister's school they all start full time straight away. If there was a 'best way' wouldn't all schools do it.