Why do we send children to school so young

[sandcastles1]

Just that really - I'm feeling really disgruntled with our school system and why we make children go into full time education from the age of 4. My dc just started and is enjoying some of it and hating lots of it. She loved the first week when it was half days. For the past four years she has been either with me or her dad - we would take her out into the woods every day. Now she's cooped up in a small room/playground for the whole time. I could have home schooled her I know but didn't think that was the best thing socially. I can see the benefits of them going but 5 days a week 9-330 just seems harsh. Why couldn't it be three days. I know up until 5 we can take them out but just wondering how others feel as I'm missing my daughter a lot, she doesn't want to be there most of the time and I really now see the virtues of other countries that don't start full time until 7. Yes it means we can work, but why is that the norm? People that don't want to spend more time with their kids could find other care the rest of the time.

Is this your first child? Leaving your PFB for the first time is hard.
I'm originally from a country where children start school at 6/7. Before that they have the option to either stay home or go to kindergarten. But, unlike here, these are almost fully funded by the government. Parents pay very little.
I now live in the UK and we'd be ruined financially if we had to pay nursery fees, at the rate they're at, until age 7.
Your comment about parents not wanting to spend time with their kids is a bit bitchy and uncalled for. Not everyone has a high earning partner and the option to work part time or be a SAHM.

The big difference I see here is that while the learning isn't difficult at age 4, the kids are indoors and sitting at a desk most of the day

Where is this? I've had experience of two different schools and the children weren't sitting at desks all day at age 4 at either of them.

I agree entirely with this. State schools are very much not set up for families where both parents work. Private schools are often better (breakfast club, after-school care)

Sorry this was a silly statement given many primary schools do offer breakfast club and after-school care!!

What I meant is that it seems to be embedded into the offering for many private schools - you can drop your child from 7.30/8am onwards and don't have to pick them up until 6pm. Whereas the availability of wraparound care at state schools appears much more mixed. We're currently looking at school places for our DC and it's always "Oh, we have a breakfast club but there's a long waiting list" or "Oh, here's our after-school club provider but they only go until 5.30pm and we can only offer certain days".

Why as a society have we done this and why do we continue to want it?
People have to work, and kids either have to work or be kept out of the way. In Victorian times they left little kids with a childminder who dosed them with drugs such as opium to make them sleep all day. Then when they were old enough they worked alongside their parents. Our current school system is a vast improvement!

I'm sure schools round here do their best but it's not really what I want for my DC.

So homeschool. If the schools are rated well, what you want for your child has nothing to do with what is actually working well for most children. Schools in towns and cities are never going to have forests for kids to romp in. What do you expect them to do? They aren’t “doing their best” they are meeting the curriculum, some in very inventive ways despite not having a rural setting.

Are you sure you are not projecting your feelings onto your child about them going to school? My daughter has just started school and all the kids in her class are thriving two weeks in. They love it and are very clearly happy and excited to be there together.

Admittedly I have had to work full time; so my daughter has been in full time nursery 5 days a week since I went back to work when she was 9 months old. I did not do this because I didn't want to spend time with her as you are implying, it was very difficult for me, but necessary to continue with my career to support my family. She loved her nursery straight away though and never cried at drop off, not even on her first day. Unfortunately the only flexibility I could negotiate with work was starting earlier to finish earlier so I could be back before 6 to pick her up.

I love my children and they are my number one priority at all times and we have so much fun together. But I also believe as parents you must teach them to be independent and confident in new situations, and to persevere with things they find challenging to begin with. Education is very important and will be the platform for all she accomplishes when she grows up in my opinion, and should be supported by a loving home life where you help them experience new and fun adventures as a family. I also hope she will
learn that if she works hard like her mummy and daddy, then she can do anything in life.

I could say to you that you are doing your child a disservice by not pushing her to embrace school.... it's early days but you must encourage her to think of school positively and feel excited about going in every day, and stop making it about the fact you miss her.

@RosyPoesy

Why as a society have we done this and why do we continue to want it? People have to work, and kids either have to work or be kept out of the way. In Victorian times they left little kids with a childminder who dosed them with drugs such as opium to make them sleep all day. Then when they were old enough they worked alongside their parents. Our current school system is a vast improvement!

Did they?! I never knew this...blimey

If people have reception kids sat at desks all day then move schools. Reception should be free flow mainly and play based. Ours certainly aren't stuff in classrooms all day.

The vaccines made a difference and we changed things around so we didn't come into contact with the relative - which was an okay set up for a few weeks but wouldn't have worked for the 14 or so months.

Which was your choice. Are you really suggesting the whole system should change because you chose to visit granny instead of doing nursery?

@BoredZelda. Well, we either intend to move or go private! Home-schooling not an option...I work and will be going back to full-time when my DC goes to school (three days atm).

Unlike the OP, I don't have a problem with school from age 4-5 but young kids should be outdoors running around for large chunks of the day. When you have 300-400 kids on one site and the only playspace is a tiny yard, that's always going to be a problem.

I don't think 9-3:30 is a particularly long day, especially for children who might have been in a childcare setting 8-6 for some years already.

There's no way our early years education is going to be reformed until we have decent government subsidised childcare in the UK.

I think full time school would probably be better from age 6, but the cost of living in this country is far too high to facilitate someone being home with the kids in every single household.

People that don't want to spend more time with their kids could find other care the rest of the time.

What a shitty, closeminded, selfish thing to say.. And your later explanations of don't wash.

Sorry this was a silly statement given many primary schools do offer breakfast club and after-school care!!

Our breakfast club opened at 8.15. My commute on a decent day is 45 minutes. I couldn’t be at my desk for an 8.30 start. After school club cost us 250 a month for one child. Then there are the school plays, open afternoons, parent/teacher meetings, class assemblies. There was something every month we were asked to join in with.

PP was not wrong when suggesting the school system assumes someone isn’t working.

@Patapouf

I don't think 9-3:30 is a particularly long day, especially for children who might have been in a childcare setting 8-6 for some years already.

There's no way our early years education is going to be reformed until we have decent government subsidised childcare in the UK.

I think full time school would probably be better from age 6, but the cost of living in this country is far too high to facilitate someone being home with the kids in every single household.

Even when people say think of child first dc want to learn earlier than this.

Some might not but they have enjoyed moving on

I will query why we have a system that is 30 hours across 5 days - I don't think it is set up that way because it is best for the children but set up as it is the best system to enable parents to work. Why as a society have we done this and why do we continue to want it?

You can query it if you want but I am struggling to see what your argument is. Most people work. It's not something new, it's not something we have magically created since the 1980s. Schools have operated as a "full" day almost since they started, I imagine (though I'm ready to be proved wrong on that one). Sure, something having been done for decades doesn't mean it shouldn't be challenged, but a lot of people thinking about children being at home with their parents rather than at school are looking at it with rose-tinted glasses. It's not the be all and end all.

There's this idea that things were wonderfully better back in the 50-80s when the economy generally allowed a family to be raised on one income, which is less possible now. But was that really the best? I look at my own mother, who raised her children with a shift-working husband in the 1980s, who now has so little in her life and is depressed and frustrated and didn't remotely get to live the life she wanted - because so much of society wasn't set up to allow two parents to work.

What's best for children? What's best for families? What's best for each individual person within each family?

So many gross oversimplications in your questioning of school from 9-3.

I do actually find spending all my time with my DS too much, there I said it. I'm a SAHM, but school 5 days a week is too much when they are so young. My DS is year one and exhausted. I feel I get no time with him, by the time he's decompressed it's time for dinner then bed. I hate it. Then there's the homework they seem to expect, and very play past year R. It's so sad.

OP going from fun time with parents to an more structured setting must be difficult for your LO. It's a huge change and maybe she is a bit overwhelmed?
The best way to deal with this is to support your child, let them decide what to do after school... maybe playground or watching TV or looking at books...
Oveall I agree, for some children age 4 is to early I had problems with both my DC (July/ August babies).
But guess what, they managed!

My vote would be Wednesday off

@BoredZelda. I was agreeing! My full-time hours, like many people, are 9-5 with a commute of up to an hour each way. The only schools that will cater for that seem to be private schools.

Unlike the OP, I don't have a problem with school from age 4-5 but young kids should be outdoors running around for large chunks of the day.

I live near a city with the one of the highest number of private schooled children per capita in the U.K. per capita. Not a single one of them has an outdoor based curriculum for younger kids. If your way was really the best, you can bet your arse there would be a whole load more private schools doing it.

My daughter is 4 and just started. She loves it and is so happy. She has definitely needed it. And although it is school, it's all play based. They're not sitting down for formal lessons. She's in 9-1.30, so perhaps it's just the hours your chosen school operates on. Where I am, the kids aren't in 9-3.30 until they're 11.

I was agreeing!

You said it was a silly statement because state schools offer breakfast/after school clubs.

Depends on the child. Mine started last year having just turned 4 and she was so ready, she's a smart independent child and is loving school.
She also loved nursery.
If she's not happy pull her out.

@BoredZelda I picked a private school for my DS for nursery ( preschool) and I based Thai on their amazing outdoor space and their forest school afternoons. He didn't attend a single forest school session as they were only once a week in reality, and never when he attended as he only did a few mornings. They didn't do free flow so break and after lunch was 15 minutes play outside, so very little time outside. Often when I picked him up it was after lunch break and they had them on the playground not on the equipment as it was muddy. They pushed academics early and that approach doesn't sit as easily with the outdoors, it's totally possible but it's more traditional to sit at a desk and write. He hated it and whilst he has done well at school it's hard to