Excessive settling in times in reception year! Who'd like full time earlier?

[Guy1973]

I am somewhat despairing at the schedule for the start of the reception year at our primary. We have three settling in days where the youngest ten in each class go first, the next ten and then the oldest, which bring us to the 8th September. I can see how that's sensible, beds in the youngest children first in smaller groups etc, that's fine. They are then offering only half days for a further fortnight, so the first full day of school is not until the 25th, ridiculous!

They justify this by saying the teachers need to do home visits but the maths on doing that, versus time saved with half days doesn’t even begin to add up and besides, quite a few of the parents don’t want this home visit, as we went in and met the teachers a few weeks back.
It seems lots of schools go straight into full days and others manage to offer parents a choice, which I think is by far the best solution. Younger, more timid children can settle in gently but those who have been in full time nursery 8am-6pm from the age of 6 months (like mine) simply don’t need this.
I’ve put this on a couple of local forums and many people agree with me but the school doesn’t seem keen to listen to the working parents for whom this is a massive pain. Interestingly there was a court case that ruled in favour of a working mum and told the school they were obliged to offer FT. I’m not sure to what extent this might set a precedent…?

www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jun/29/infant-schools-settling-in-period-parents-work

What annoys me most about this policy is that makes life difficult for the modestly or low paid. If you earn squillions and/or have a full time nanny, as many in my neighbourhood do, it’s not really any skin off your nose. For those with two working parents on modest incomes, it might cause financial hardship and mean their kids have to forgo things they enjoy, which doesn’t seem very fair to me.
I’d be interested to hear from those whose schools do offer a choice of FT or PT for the first few weeks, or anyone in local authority administration who can shed light on the legal obligation side of things. Has anyone succeeded in lobbying or pressurising their school to offer FT earlier? I think it’s about time this system was changed to stop penalising the least well off and offer a better solution for everyone.

Yes, quack - that would be a compromise if everyone was in agreement.

But many posters (and teachers) on this thread who are unhappy with staggered starts are talking about full-time from day one. Some of them have suggested telling the school that their child is going full-time from day one. No compromise or national dialogue there.

I'm tempted to tell. Our school has a period of half days followed by a period of 'optional' half days for parents who feel their DC need a longer settling in period. I think the first period should be optional too, given that children have the right to a FT place from the start. If telling the school that my DC will be FT from the start is the only way to get the school to fulfil its legal obligation, then I can't see what the problem is.

It's hardly being unreasonable though of the legal position is full time is available in all schools from September?
Compromise would be appropriate if there was no legal obligation but the parents were asking a big favour, to see if the school would give them a smaller favour.

It's not about whether it's illegal - it's whether parents should be going in from the off taking about "the threat of enforcement", as the OP mentioned.

Mature and calm discussion, great.

Thing is, it is a legal entitlement. The legal entitlement is to start from day 1, not to start from week 2 instead of week 6, so a compromise isn't an easy position to take at the outset as a parent.

If you start off by saying "I'd like my child to start from day 1 as per their legal entitlement" (but worded better), you've put your cards on the table from the start, and you haven't gone down the road of arguing with their professional opinion. School can then if they want come back and say "Fair enough but it would be really difficult to arrange as we like to do home visits in the afternoons of the first week. How would you feel about one week of half days?" It seems actually a less argumentative way of getting to the compromise.

Hi SuburbanRhonda, I have already conceded that was a poor choice of words on my part and I will certainly be seeking a compromise in the first instance with the school, and I think a week of half days might be about right. But if the school is intractable it seems parents would at that stage have little choice but to 'insist'. Catkind, I agree and am hoping that's how the conversation will go.

But why would you say, "as per their legal entitlement" (leaving aside how wanky it sounds)?

Surely no-one would insist just because it's a legal entitlement? Most posters on this thread have said they would want full time from day one for family reasons, so why wouldn't you give the actual reason?

Realistically 'legal entitlement' is a much stronger argument that 'it suits me' which is what 'family reasons' means.

So you're saying it's better to say something that isn't the real reason otherwise you might not get what you want? Got you.

I think its crazy too - mine was doing full time in the attached pre school, then had 3 weeks of part time when moving up to Reception. The school had a done a great job of settling them in by doing pre visits etc.

I think it harks back to 1950 when 'mum' was at home all day and had nothing better to do than trot back and forth to school all day.

I did say worded better suburban. You mention the legal entitlement upfront because I'm afraid schools don't tend to change the way they've always done it just because you ask nicely. And actually, "it's a legal entitlement" is a more diplomatic argument to make than anything else which is going to basically amount to "I think your stated professional opinion is not evidence based and is wrong".

My DS's school goes full time from day 1 - the reception kids are shattered for the first couple of weeks then seem to get over it quite quickly.

The reason that parents feel entitled to ask for something different is that they know they have a legal entitlement. They might not be asking if the entitlement wasn't there.

You mention the legal entitlement upfront because I'm afraid schools don't tend to change the way they've always done it just because you ask nicely.

I'm not sure how many schools you have experience of, catkind, but in the four I've worked in we love it when parents ask nicely! What's important is how willing you are to work with us, not how much legalisation you can quote.

My kids' school is full time from day 1. When asked about it the school said that over the years they had tried every option they could think of and this is the one that seemed to enable the kids to settle the best. There is the option to go part time either until half term or Xmas (or later if child is a later birthday) but it is apparently fairly rare for parents to do this. (Roughly 88 out of 90 start full time on average apparently.)

From thinking about my children and their personalities and thinking about starting school in a vacuum I think starting full time is the best option:-

Very Routine driven
Both gave up naps long before their 3rd birthday (bugger!)
In nursery 3 long days a week since 1st birthday
In school nursery so used to school buildings and routines

Obviously this will differ for different children and from the split opinion of teachers on here it is probably fairly marginal as to what is actually "best".

However, few of us do parent (and so our children start school) in a vacuum. In my case I am a (part time) working mum. Me and Dh work school hours so we can (between us) be the parent at the school,gate. So we don't have a handy childminder who could take them for a few extra hours (even assuming aforementioned childminder had space!) so the only external childcare provision we have would be strangers. That would definitely not be of old for ds.

So the only way we could do it is by me and Dh taking time off. Which I would do if I was convinced of a benefit for ds but it would come as a price. And that price would be half term and this summer (between us we now have 3 weeks off with both kids). And that would definitely be bad for both children.

So living in the real world - where every day that a parent takes off to fascilitate settling in is one less day off in the school holidays - I don't believe that a long settling in period is good for kids.

mum

I think you'll find that parents who stay at home with their children are "living in the real world" just as much as those who don't

Good point. Ok - rephrasing:-

So living in the real world - where for a large proportion of parents every day that a parent takes off to fascilitate settling in is one less day off in the school holidays - I don't believe that a long settling in period is good for kids.

I was under the impression that Reception, especially in the very early days, has lots and lots of free play/structured play, and that academic activities do not make up the bulk of school hours, certainly at first.

So if they want to make sure children do not get overtired, why not have a full day on the school grounds but just have the children do supervised free play for the second half of the day (1-3pm or whatever), for the first few weeks?

That would be a lot less disruptive than having a child hanging around with a random babysitter or something to fill in a couple of hours until 3pm, and then sent off to their long-term afterschool care facility from 3pm until the parents finish work.

Mary

I think they do that anyway! Phonics and maths first thing in the morning then "learning through play". Storytime just before they go home.

Whoareyou123 - I mean full-time education with children taught by teachers with a university degree.

Update!
Had a meeting with the head having shown him this thread. To bew fair to him, he only started in January so wasn't party to the process last year, and it seems he lefty it to the two form teachers and teaching assts to determine the quickest that FT education could be offered to reception intake while still doing all the home visits. Having done and induction morning last term, I have declined my home visit and believe a number of other parents have too, which may free up some time and he has offered to see if things can be rejigged to offer FT in the back end of the third week. I still think a more ambitious schedule could have got all the home visits done in much less time but one takes what one can get sometimes. The head has also, to his credit, promised to look at moving all the home visits to the back end of the summer term so next years intake can start sooner or perhaps offer parents an element of choice, so that's very promising. I wouldn't have had the awareness that many schools and teachers think this kind of excessive settling in period is actually unsettling for a variety of reasons, without this forum and your contributions, so thanks very much. I am going to put this compromise out there in Wandsworth so that it reaches parents and teachers at primaries with similar arrangements who might be encouraged by the fact that schools will listen and adjust their policies according to parents concerns. Not the result I wanted, but better than nothing and heading in the right direction.

We have 1 week of no school. 1 week of mornings. 1 week of afternoons. Then full time. I am really lucky that DS has a childminder who will do it.

The school offered a home visit but I declined and explained DS was at the childminder's house while I worked.