Reception settling in arrangements - what are yours as ds's school seems to have ridiculous arrangements

[Iamnotanuglyhag]

Ds starts reception in September. For the first FIVE weeks they go only 8.50 til 11.35!!
That's only ten minutes more than he did at preschool. Now for a week or two that would be fine but five weeks!!
They then have a week of an extra hour and then go full time the week before half term.

From a personal point of view this creates havoc with my work but generally I find it ridiculous. Surely 95% of reception starters have been to some sort of nursery or preschool? I'm sure a week or two of mornings only (and hey proper mornings would be nice not 2hrs 45) would suffice for settling in.

What is the teacher going to do every afternoon from 11.35 for five weeks?

Would the council have a minimum expectation of hours after the first week or two (albeit I know there is no legal obligation for them to be in school at this age) given they are providing the funding?

Rant over but am I the only one with school settling in arrangements for their dc like this?

just wondering? My dd is 5 on the 9th sept (not this year but already winding myself up about it)

do they legally have to take them full days once they are officially 5 years old?

No they don't have to take them full days, schools and LAs can have their own induction processes which judging from the posts here and other forums seems to be anything from full time on day one to a full term of part time sessions with all kinds of methods in between.

cheers for that mrz - I should really know that seeing as I teach reception but I wasnt sure what the rules were.

We take ours full time day 1 - the younger children start in January also full time straight away, seems to suit our parents.

We only have a single intake in September so all my class will start full time on the first day obviously we are flexible if children can't cope.
Think in law they must be full time the term after their fifth birthday which is why some areas draw it out until January.

My sisters school had a reception class that went in for an hour on a Monday morning for 3 weeks.

In the fourth week they had a half day and the fifth week they did one full day.

Sixth week they were all full time.

Absolutely barking.

Zipzap, glad to see that one school has got it right. It seems obvious to me that if you are having a staggered start, the little ones should come in first, and get to know the teacher in a small group, then let the bigger ones join later. Having said that, some of the younnger ones are not necessarily the least confident, but age is the only sensible way to split it.

Oh FFS some of this fucking about is ridiculous. As someone else says, it makes the whole of family life revolve around the 4 year old for a month or more to no real purpose. Must be even more fun when the school's a bus ride away and the family car-free: you drop the child off, go home, have about enough time to take a dump before having to turn round and go back for him/her.
I was narked enough with the letter from DS school saying that children would be starting either mornings or afternoons and that we would find out more on the Parents' Meeting er, two days before the start of term.
SO I rang them up and pointed out sharply that those of us who work need to actually know in order to sort out our childcare arrangments - luckily the afterschool club has been nice and accommodating, DS is doing morings and for the first week or two he will come home for his dinner then go back to afterschool club...

my dd school seems quite sensible she is born 30th august so the baby of the year

week 1 - 9.00 till 11.30 ( because she was in morning nursery afternoon children do lunch till 3.30)

week 2 - 8.50 - 1pm ( staying for lunch)

• afternoon children arrive at 12 and stay till the end of the day

week 3 - all children 8.50 - 2pm

week 4 - all day

and if they're not settling then they'll do it on a case by case basis

quite happy with that other school we looked at had summer babies not even looked at for full time school till after christmas but probably easter

Ds1 has a 2 days of finishing at 12.
Then on day 3 I go in for school dinner with him and we come home at 1 .
Day 4&5 he comes home after lunch.
The second week is fulltime.

But he has been in the nursery class at the school for a year, doing 9-11:30, in the classroom that joins onto the reception one. So he isn't going in to anything that new or scary.

On the other hand, I've had a whole year of going to school 3 times a day, and I'm so looking forward to having more than 2 hours to go out with ds2!

They do staggered intake here though - Sep-Feb babies in Sept and Mar-Aug babies in January. The younger ones do an extra term in the nursery. Ds1 was born prematurely at the end of Feb so he just sneaks in to the Sep start.

week 1 - thurs only, 8.50 - 11.50
week 2 - mon, weds, & friday 8.50 - 11.50
week 3 - 8.50 - 2.00 every day (yay!, almost there)
week 4 - full time.

the school has a pre-school, and you can send them there to make up the time to full time for parents who work, but they are charging £2 an hour. for ds it's a step backwards, he's used to doing 3 full days at pre-school, he's going to hate it and not understand why he's not staying all day.

we moved house 3 years ago, shortly before dd started school and at the school she would have been going to it was part time until christmas, ridiculous!

When my dd started reception she did 4 days mornings only but staying for lunch. Than full time following week. This year erwcwption children will only have 2 part time days.

God I wish DS school had some flexibility. I like the idea of letting the parent choose until they turn 5, or just starting out with half days.

DS isn't settling well and if I'd been able to choose for him I'd probably have said;
start a day or two later than the rest of kids (wednesday rather than monday). Go 9-12 for first half week.
Second week go 9-1 (after lunch)
Third week full days.

Mine all started full time on Monday - only one cried very briefly (soon fixed by a cuddle) one fell asleep just before hometime yesterday but so far so good

and you bumped this 3 year old thread to tell us this - yawn