School visits

[Wildflowers]

First one happening next week, then the children going to that school will be going one afternoon a week until the end of term. I got really upset...

[finleysmaid]

Ridiculous timings,,,,,September is nearly half a year away that's a huge amount of time for children of this age......shouldn't be going until they are much older IMO anyway :( feel for you :angry:

[Conker]

I'm with you on that one, I've already had very anxious children being dragged round to 'look' at other schools as the parents thought our village one was oversubscribed. I had one little girl in tears today as mum had told her to be ready for big school and she " wasn't feeling ready at all"

I suppose the feeling is with the visits is to reasure the children that its not such a big scary place as they imagine and they will see lots of their friends from last year and to be fair we have a lovely exciting reception and teacher and I know they will love it.......but they are still so little

[Wildflowers]

And what about the children knowing where they belong and being relaxed where they are, which is so important for learning?!

One the children starting the transition to this school next week has resisted being with us for months. Now I expect him to be unsettled again.

These children are part of our group until they leave. This school makes their start easier for them, but sabotage our work. My understanding is that the Reception year is supposed to be about transition into school...

I feel that our work is disrespected by this school, as if we are doing what we do for them.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Wildflowers

[finleysmaid]

we have had discussions ...without results.....with our local school about the possibility of children returning to us for a few days in September and then doing the transitions....my feeling is this would work much better and I would be happy to have no funding for a couple of days to try it. School nurseries would work well like this perhaps someone could give it a go...i'd love to know if it works!

[thumperrabbit]

Last year we noticed a drop in schools coming to visit us the reasons they gave were that they had increased children's visits to school and that they were doing home visits so therefore they didn't need to do pre-school visits

and then of course we get the question from Ofsted about our links with schools ....

Edited April 28, 2016 by thumperrabbit

[manor]

With all this lack of interest from school coming out to visit us, is there any point in us doing them any paperwork/ reports then. They usually do their own basline assessment after a few weeks and so i wonder if the school are really bothered/interested with what we send them?! Just another box to tick.

 

:unsure:

[Guest]

Last year we noticed a drop in schools coming to visit us the reasons they gave were that they had increased children's visits to school and that they were doing home visits so therefore they didn't need to do pre-school visits

and then of course we get the question from Ofsted about our links with schools ....

 

as a Year R person I think this is very sad - you guys have a wealth of information about children and families that I find very useful. Also, I have information that is useful to local pre-schools simply because I've been here since Noah was a boy and so know the families well.

It does take work on both sides, but parents feel happier if they've seen me around at the preschools and it pays dividends in terms of building a trusting relationship with them too.

I spend a lot of time this term getting either myself or another staff member into all of our 21 feeders, but it really is worth it.

 

 

Manor - yes of course we do a 'baseline' by the end of the first half-term. Usually this will take information from pre-schools and parents as a starting point, but we need to amalgamate 21 different data systems into one that works for us. Please don't feel undervalued by this, it's just practicalities.

 

Sadly I seem to remember a similar post this time last year.

[Wildflowers]

Anyone else having school visits this early - 5 May onwards?

[finleysmaid]

I had one of mine visit her new school several weeks ago!

 

This is NOT a school bashing thread im sure, it's just the system that's wrong! I just have this feeling that things could easily be done a different way that would be better for the children if we all thought about it a bit more. Although if the government gets its way the children will be in school all the time so it won't be a problem! :unsure: :blink: