Sept Children

[titchy]

how does everyone manage all their new children starting in sept. I have quite a few new children starting from sept and am concerned as to how im going to manage them all. Balancing budgets with staff ratios and so forth. We've obviously got a settling in policy which states parents should stay to settle their children etc but im wondering does anyone do a staggering in period, having a few start a different times etc, then again i gues its down to cost and if this is possible. Suggestion please, AW i forgot to say most of the children starting are barely 2and most of them having stayed anywhere before

[SazzJ]

I am in a similar situation myself

 

Not sure how many you have coming in. I will have 4 children that will be staying with us in september, sadly for me my other 21 are going to school. Going to miss them loads

 

These are my only full time staff and the rest coing in are between 2 and 3 year olds so a big age gap developmentally. When parents have asked for days I have tried to spend them out and then sell the ones that needed topped up. For example of I parent asked for 2 days and said ohh any day is fine by me I have fitted the children in on the days that were lowest to try and spread them out.

 

My busiest day will be a Thursday with 12 children and ten of those will be new children but some will have had a few days to settle in. I also have a fantastic volunteer who is on hand if i need her as an extra pair of hands.

 

I would work out what days they are attending and then look at your staffing and she what you can do.

 

Ohh forgot to say most of mie are having taster sessions before we break up for the holidays just so that it is not totally new to them in september

[Panders]

Unless they arrive already entitled to funding, I stagger their start. First week back - children returning, so we get them back into the swing of things and used to our routine again - surprising how much difference this has made since we started doing it, however, I would have about 10-12 children returning like this.

 

The following week, we only start up to 2 new ones each day. Although it can be financially hard if you have only a few children bringing in funding, extra pairs of hands during week one and two is always very useful to settle everyone in, what would you do if Ofsted called to inspect during week 2 if all your new charges were very upset!! We had an ofsted inspection week 3 four years ago, the children were just about settling in hardly any tears at all by then.

[SazzJ]

Panders Ofsted turned up on the monday of my 2nd week in the new role lol, that was fun and games.

 

Guess it depends a) on the children and b)the funding

[lynned55]

We do as Panders, have a visit for around an hour on weds of first week, with carer for all our new children, start our 'old' children following day and then start our new ones 2 per day from Mon of the next week. Ours dont start until 2 & 8/9mths, so are slightly older. Last year we had two days with only six children and five staff in before the new ones started. But it's never been a problem, gives us all a chance to catch up on any paperwork and often sort stuff that we would never get chance to. My staff are all on an annual contract so never drop or increase days, to be honest we have never had to. I suppose we do run at a loss the first couple of weeks but it evens out by half term. Even if they are funded we would still stagger them. If they are siblings or we think they will be ok, then we would perhaps start them earlier. It can be a bit of a nightmare though cant it, esp when you are trying to start nearly 30 children asap!!