Admission, I agree. The advice from the NAHT was, I thought, very sensible:
"NAHT’s overarching advice is that schools should proceed methodically and with caution. It would be prudent to plan for a high-take up of places, even if parents and carers indicate that initial take-up is likely to be low. This is because, over time, more parents may want to send their children into school as they see others return. NAHT, therefore, recommends that members plan on the basis that virtually all pupils in a class could return. This will help to ensure any plan is sustainable over the summer term."
They further said, which I thought was interesting, because my reading of the advice document from the DfE was, similarly, that part time was not being encouraged:
" NAHT’s understanding is that, at this point in time, the DfE would prefer schools to prioritise bringing back individual year groups on a consistent basis rather than alternating year groups on a rota basis. We understand this is because it will reduce the number of contacts and help those parents return to work, whereas alternating days or weeks is less likely to achieve this.
However, if the individual circumstances of a school mean the use of rotas even within a year group is unavoidable, we recommend schools try to avoid split day rotas as this is likely to increase the number of parents, staff and pupils coming into contact with each other on a daily basis and reduced opportunity for cleaning etc. A week on, week off approach is likely to be more manageable."
I can quite understand that heads will want to keep people happy, and accommodate everyone's wishes if they can - so it might seem sensible in the short term to get in 'everyone who wants to come in' even if those arrangements don't scale up easily, to avoid people saying 'but the school is almost empty, they should have my child in today as well'. However, the advice to plan for a solution that works as parents change their minds seems really sensible.