kittycat1279 Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 We've had a few problems this year with parents wanting their summer birthday children starting full time before our publicised date. They started staying for lunch this week and then will be starting full time in December. I was just wondering what other schools are doing as we are thinking about what we want to do next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 My LA has a single intake in September for all children. My class all start full time from the first day of term unless there is a concern that the child won't be able to cope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlettangel Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 Our reception class is one form entry too, although parents do have the choice to keep them in nursery if they don't think they are ready for school. We try to advise parents re this move and for the majority we don't beleive the move to reception is a worry because of its similarity to nursery particularly in the first term. Hope this helps you decision for next year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aliamch Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 My youngest was born in July and he started reception in the January before his 5th birthday. I would have loved to have kept him in nursery and have him start reception the September after his 5th birthday. He did find it really hard to cope with but his school is fantastic, records of concerns and IEP's etc in place and regularly updated. He's now in Yr 1 and still struggles, but he does love going to school and doing his 'work' and that's the most important part. On the other hand, his best friend is an August baby and is flying, it very much depends on the child. I know the school have taken summer born children in September if numbers are low and they feel the children are ready. Karrie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 My youngest was born in July and he started reception in the January before his 5th birthday. I would have loved to have kept him in nursery and have him start reception the September after his 5th birthday. He did find it really hard to cope with but his school is fantastic, records of concerns and IEP's etc in place and regularly updated. He's now in Yr 1 and still struggles, but he does love going to school and doing his 'work' and that's the most important part. On the other hand, his best friend is an August baby and is flying, it very much depends on the child.I know the school have taken summer born children in September if numbers are low and they feel the children are ready. Karrie Hi, We take all the Autumn born children full time from September and the Spring and Summer part time for the Autumn term and then everyone is full time from January. We do each year have a few parents who ask can their child be full time from September but the HeadTeacher always says no this is our policy and we are not changing it for a few parents. I think my class this year would have struggled if they had all been full time in September. I have nearly a 1/3 rd of my class of 30 who will need Ed Pysch/ behaviour team/ language team support and at the moment it's only the fact that most of these children go home at lunch time that is keeping us going!!! As I do not have full time TA support we would need to reorganise our whole support system if all started full time in September. Having a daughter whose birthday is August 31st I can see the sense in a staggered start but sadly we did not get that option when she started school. It has taken until last year, in Yr5, for her to catch up with other children. (Not helped by the fact that she was almost deaf and no one realised. She was at a school with a hearing unit and her best friend was deaf so the staff signed everything for him and Emily just learnt through him. We only discovered her deafness when she was at the end of Yr1 and we got her referred to a specialist. Now having had various operations she has almost perfect hearing and that is making a big difference) Hope you are able to resolve the problems and then get a clear policy for future years. Nicky Sussex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catma Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 For maintained schools points of entry is down to your LA is it not? - unless you are a church school. All our parents have to apply to central admissions for Sept/Jan except for some of the church ones who start all children in Sept. Cx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 For maintained schools points of entry is down to your LA is it not? - unless you are a church school. All our parents have to apply to central admissions for Sept/Jan except for some of the church ones who start all children in Sept.Cx I think it probably is down to LA. That said I teach in a Church School but other maintained schools in our locality have same pattern of intake as us. Nicky Sussex Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 We are 2 form entry and all children start in September.The intake is staggered in 3 groups of 10 over 10 days. Each 'group' does 3 days mornings only, 2 days mornings plus lunch going home at 12:40 and on the 6th day fulltime.By the 3rd full week of school all children were fulltime. We have a particularly young class this year with 6 children with birthdays by mid November and nothing until May when there are 24 children with birthdays between May and August We have made changes to how we work and one of which is we will not be joining whole school assemblies until after Easter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 The single intake in my LA influenced our choice to become a FSU. Having said that both my own children have late summer birthdays and neither had any problems in school. I've also taught classes where the eldest child was less mature and developmentally ready for school than children almost a full year younger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 we take all of our children in part time in september - many of my class of late spring or summer born children but interestingly it is the older autumn born children that are sticking out this year as developmentally not ready - which was a bit of a surprise to me when looking at their birth dates! I think it really depends on the cohort to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elfy Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 Think yourselves lucky we still have a three term intake into reception - meaning the very youngest children get the shortest time in the biggest class!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shiny Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 My sons school has a single intake, summer born are part time until after christmas. I was a very young starter having my birthday on 31 August. My mum had the choice of when to send me but all my friends were going to school and I wanted to go with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest heleng Posted November 15, 2008 Share Posted November 15, 2008 We are the same as Elfy. Children start the term in which their 5th birthday falls so the youngest children only get 1 term in the biggest class!! We do not have an option, it is a county policy that schools with an attached nursery (which is what we are) cannot take children into full time school any earlier. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 16, 2008 Share Posted November 16, 2008 we're two form entry and all children started on day 1 full time this year. In the past we have stagered entry which was much more successful but still all in full time after a couple of weeks. Hope to go back to staggered entry next year becaus this year was really difficult! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 16, 2008 Share Posted November 16, 2008 We only have one intake. All the children start part time in September, and are full-time by October half term, though if there was a real issue with a child, we could extend the part-time. This year it hasn't been an issue - mind you the youngest in my class at present is a June birthday. I don't think that one intake affects the child, as long as the base they are going into is apatable to their needs. Some of my children are not ready for the slightly more formal aspects of Reception, and so we have kept it very play base for them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kittycat1279 Posted November 17, 2008 Author Share Posted November 17, 2008 Thank you for all your replies. It seems that there is a lot of differences across the country. Our LA don't stipulate anything other than we should be providing full time education for all children from January, which we do. The problems we are having is with the minority who seem to want to push them into full time education - often for cheap child care reasons! They have the option from December though. I'm sure if we changed it we would have some parents feeling that their child would not be ready for it! You can never please everyone! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elfy Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 where abouts in the country are you heleng? I think this is very unusual now and I am under the impression that it will be reviewed in the not to distant future in our LA. Meant to say before this is one of the main reasons we became a foundation stage unit - to try and reduce some of the issues with three term entry. Elfy x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest heleng Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 I'm in Haverhill in Suffolk. Whereabouts are you? We work very closely with our nursery and now share the same class space so that really helps with transition. My head was talking about possibly the LEA moving to two term entry but we will have to wait and see as there are lots of other changes going on at the mo (moving to two tier from 3 tier). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted November 18, 2008 Share Posted November 18, 2008 I would not want to change what we are doing because the parents want it changed (for, as you probably correctly suggest, childcare reasons!). As you say, parents will moan either way! If, however, we decided to change what we do because it worked better for the children and setting, then that's a different matter. And it might be clear from this that parents thinking they can tell us what to do is irritating me somewhat!!!! No wonder some children are like that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elfy Posted November 19, 2008 Share Posted November 19, 2008 see told you it was unusual - I also work in suffolk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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