4 year old starting reception…sending 4 days before CSA

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my 4 yo starts school in september, cant quite believe it and i havent taken to it ‘well’ and ive been extremely sad which is something i never expexted. I have always ‘gone against the grain’ and never been that traditional, i would of liked to home school but my 4 yo is asking/ wants to go to school and is excited ti go.. so ive had to push my feelings aside and she has a place in september.
after weeks and months of thinking, feeling sad, thinking how things will work i still cant shift my feelings of sadness and dislike of the school system at such a young age..
i am set on sending her 4 days not 5 untill she reaches the compulsory school age of 5 - the term after they turn 5 so works on january for us. I dont feel missing a day a week wil have an effect at this early reception stage and i feel it will create a fair balance of home, school, family and outside school learning , yet obviously when you tell people your plans your met with opinions on both ends. Just looking to see anyone else has done part time before CSA and if it was due to having similar reasons to mine.

There’s so much discourse online, especially if you find yourself in “alternative” parenting groups, not to make mainstream parenting decisions or follow the herd in any way (following the alternative herd however, is mandatory 😅).

Oh gosh there's so much truth in this - it reminds me of my lovely college friends who prided themselves on being alternative, but who all wore the same baggy jeans, converse, band t-shirt and black eyeliner combo.

OP the school system is actually pretty decent for most kids, it's developed on evidence based pedagogy as much as possible. There's nothing in your posts to suggest your DD will do anything other than thrive.

thankyou- a calm and fair response that doesnt make me feel like im going mad!
yeah i had an idea of a Wednesday off.
excatly, my plan was to do educational trips or forest school on that day

Educated, and currently teaching in Scotland. I haven’t heard of this either.

Definitely social media driven! All the replies stating it's OP's right to keep her daughter off until CSA haven't once acknowledged that OP's daughter actually wants to go to school. The focus is simply on a parent's rights.

Just because it's our right to do this, doesn't necessarily mean we should or it would be good for every child. These days though, some people are so focused on their rights that they seem to forget that it's not about them and should be about what is right for the child.

Well, yes, you are if it's for your feelings not hers. Being a good parent means putting your child first. She wants to go. It's you that is holding her back.

I'm not against home school at all! And flexible schooling can be a lifesaver for certain children. But that's not what this is. This is selfishness.

thats because if she goes 4 days or 5 shell be going regardless. Its not like i am keeping her in a black hole unable to leave the house

But you don't seem to be considering how going 4 days out of 5 could actually be more confusing or unsettling than not going at all. If you're that keen to home school that would actually provide greater consistency for her than this bitty approach, which is only for your benefit rather than her benefit.

Are you not concerned how disruptive and confusing it will be to your daughter to miss the middle of every school week for one term? If you're going to do forest school and educational things with her anyway, wouldn't she be better off doing these in school with her friends? She's going to question why her friends are in school and she isn't (as another member shared first hard on the first page how upsetting and confusing this was for her son). She's always going to have to settle back in on the Thursday, catching up on the previous day's learning which she missed. It seems utterly pointless to me, for the sake of a term, just because you can and you want to.

It's also going to be confusing for her when January comes and she no longer has her mid week jollies with mummy. I'm sure you'll interpret that as her not being ready for full time school, when most likely it will just be because that's the routine she's come to expect. It makes far more sense to start properly from the get go, school is 5 days a week. No change in routine to adapt to part way through.

As I said, if home schooling is that important to you it's probably better to commit from the off. Done properly, children can still experience good socialisation. This seems a half hearted approach to it which is just centred around what you want, to keep her to yourself for just a little bit longer. Ultimately, the one who is going to be confused and question why she's different to he peers is her. It does seem fundamentally selfish as it's for your benefit, not her benefit.

Fairly pointless thing to do, op, even if school would agree to it, which they won’t.
If you enrol her, she has to follow the same rules as the other kids, you don’t get to cherrypick.

Actually pre CSA a parent can do as they please. By law.

@ladyamy interesting. Very common here. I would say at least a third don't do Friday, maybe twenty percent don't do Thursday. They do ask children attend a Monday as that sets work for week.

No.. as shes 4. Kids in nursery go different times and days and they arent confused.

Exactly ! A lot don’t even know what day of the week it is at that stage I hardly think she will be saying ‘but mummy it’s Wednesday and I’m concerned I’ll miss phonics and tomorrow everyone will criticise me for missing a day and I’ll be upset!’ She will just go with it kids are adaptable .

Under CSA parents can decide whatever they want ! School cant do a thing about it

Nursery and Reception are incredibly different. Same curriculum, same ethos, but one is school and one is not.

It is the norm for children to dip in and out of different sessions in nursery. It is not the norm for that to happen in Reception. Your daughter will very quickly cotton on to the fact that she's the odd one out as all of her friends are there all the time.

If she’s not there how will she be aware anyone else is ? Reception children can’t even tell the time she won’t even understand the concept of it ? She will just be happy when she is there and happy when she’s getting time with her mum at home doing educational or fun stuff

I actually deferred my son’s Reception start so he started school at 5y3m, but he’s autistic and very much needed that year to work on things like speech and toilet training.

I honestly don’t have an issue with parents going against the grain WRT starting school. I do see some parents making that choice simply out of fear, forgetting that it’s natural to find the transition to school really daunting. It’s a huge rite of passage as a parent as well as for your child.

Some, as you say, perhaps have too much of a focus on their “rights” and fighting the establishment. I think that energy could be poured into something more productive personally.

Perhaps she won't notice when it's a normal school day, but i'm curious as to how the OP would deal with the situtation if something exciting happened on a Wednesday. For example, class treat, trip out, school play and so on.

You've been sending her to nursery 3 days a week for 8 hours a day, stop pretending you're a better parent than anyone else

If you had to work 5 days a week I'm better you wouldn't find it a problem

You need to put your child's needs ahead of yours. Missing a day will cause all kinds of issues as they will be missing everything on that day, plus very confusing for your child. Homeschooling isn't right in your circumstances as it seems to be about your needs not your child

my thoughts!

Never said i was a better parent. But if the boot fits

Well in that case my younger 2 have never had to go so I must be an amazing parent, thanks for that 😀

Centre your child not yourself.

You are being dependent on them when they are demonstrating a desire to be independent.

It's unhealthy.

Reception kids are more perceptive to difference and changes in routine than you might think. It won’t take long before kids realise that Emily is never there on a Friday, and for Emily to realise that her peers attend school on Fridays but she doesn’t.

I’m not saying that there will be negative consequences to either of those scenarios, but it’s daft to think kids simply won’t be aware, because they will be.

Oh she'll definitely know. I've had several children with poor attendance before and all are acutely aware of the shared experiences they've missed and can often become withdrawn because of it. You try not to draw attention to it, but they definitely know and can work it out for themselves that they've missed out on something.

You recap all the time in Reception - "remember yesterday when we...". Great for helping to reinforce learning and help those who weren't there for whatever reason catch up, but it quickly becomes plainly obvious to children if they've missed lots of experiences their peers have clearly partaken in.

Socially, children become aware of peers who aren't there. "Where we you yesterday?", or "why were you not here?" etc. You can't stop other children questioning their innocent observations.

Assuming a 4 year old is too young to realise they're missing out on things is very naive and quite insulting to their intelligence to be honest.