Starting school/school hours

hilstep2000

I think they are being unreasonable. I am a teaching assitant working with Reception. Last year we had a childminder who was ruching from school to school, and I stayed with the child till they came, it's not that difficult! Write or speak to the Head, and ask for a compromise.

Zziggi

Mumstheword wrote:

I think (devil's advocate here) that the problem the school have is that they have over 200 children. If one is allowed to stay around for 5 or 10 minutes after school, then they open themselves up to other mums who may work til 3pm to ask if school could look after their children for 5 or 10 minutes too. the official answer has to be no for that reason.

Absolutely and you can see why Head's don't wish to exercise discretion but play it strictly by the book. If a Head exercises discretion for one family but another family finds the Head's discretion goes in the other direction, you'll gets accusations of discrimination/favouritism. If i were the Head i know I'd want to play it by the book. But I'm not the Head....

...without going into unecessary details, I would have hoped that given our pretty unique circumstances, that the school would have been flexible.

cheekymole wrote:

Our teachers stand outside until every last child has gone home (sometimes 15 minutes for the parents who continue to take the p***)

Maybe I shouldn't be too bothered and just let the childminder be always 5-10 mins late without so much as an apology and let it be water off a duck's back. But that just isn't my style (or the childminder's) and I just wouldn't want to be so rude maybe i will have to. But it doesn't create a very good impression of you & your family to the school.

black-saturn

Can't you ask your work if you can finish early that day?

If it's anything like my DD school they always let them out late anyway. They are supposed to come out at 3.15pm but it's usually 3.25pm by the time they finally open the doors which is a pain as my other DD also finishes at 3.25 at a school which is 15 minutes walk away.

Penny_Watcher

I'm going off at a tangent here - but children with disabilities who are in mainstream education around here are taken to and from school by taxis provided by the LEA. There is also a carer who travels with them (I know this because one little boy is in DS2's class and the paid travelling carer is my next-door-but-one neighbour)

Any chance of approaching your local education office for help?

Zziggi

Penny_Watcher wrote:

I'm going off at a tangent here - but children with disabilities who are in mainstream education around here are taken to and from school by taxis provided by the LEA.Any chance of approaching your local education office for help?

Nope. Tried this one. DS is going to the school that is not our catchment area school (despite it only being 0.2mile further away in the opposite direction and despite the catchment area school being totally unsuitable because it is a HUGE school, noisy, busy, crowded. He wouldn;t have coped there. Did we really have a choice but send him outside of the catchment area?).Because of it not being our catchment area school the LEA says if you choose a school outside the catchment area then you must transport them (special needs or not).


I just wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions. Can you believe it, this the one issue that has been most bothering me about DS starting school!

Plan A:
I am going to speak to the Head and explain to him clearly why i am asking for DS to leave a few minutes early. I will explain his dislike of noise & crowds (all true) and also be honest and say there is a minor logistical prob with the childminder and explain why it has to be the childminder and not me picking up DS. I will ask for him to be sympathetic to my request and ask him to bend the rules in this case. Hopefully he will understand.

If not then Plan B. Firstly I'll try to make it only 2 days (or less is possible) that the childminder picks up DS. When the childminder does pick DS up I'll tell DS to stay near the classroom door until he is picked up and not to go off with strangers (always good advice). I'll tell the childminder to let it be water of a duck's back if she is a couple few minutes late. Although she is like me and will feel uncomfortable. But ultimately what can the school do? Meanwhile I'll hope that some other arrangement presents itself maybe with another parent or someother arrangement that i haven't thought of yet.

I just don't feel comfortable with Plan B. I am a sensitive person and I don't want the school to think we/childminder are 'undesirable' people who show a lack of respect to the school & its staff by repeated lateness in picking DS up. It just doesn't create the right impression and it doesn't reflect the type of people (i hope) we are.

Thanks again.

apples1

I am finding hard to know if this is an issue of disability or not. I have read the post (although quite quickly) but I'm not sure. If the issue is that your child has a disability that means for reasons of his disability he needs to leave school early (to avoid crowds or whatever) then I'm sure the school should and would accomodate for that.

If the issue is that you are a working Mum and do not finish work in time to collect your child and have not or cannot arranged an alternative (childminder, friend or whatever) to collect them for you then I don't really see why the school should say yes. I agree it would be helpful and kind if they did but if they said yes to you then it would be very hard to say no to anyone else that asked for their child to leave late or early on a daily indefinate basis.

I am sure they would help as a temporary measure but not as an ongoing one - it wouldn't be fair.

Whilst I understand if I've read posts correctly that your husband is disabled I don't see with all due respect that this has a bearing on the schools decision. It may not be due to disability but many single Mums don't have a husband to collect their children and man married ones don't have one at home at 3pm to do this either!

Its a struggle for many of us to arrange all the logistics of parenting but I don't see it as the schools responsibility to help except in exceptional circumstances.

Please accept my appologies if I have mis-read or misinterpreted the facts of your case.

black-saturn

I don't hold out much hope. The school see it as your responsibilty to pick your children up at 3.05pm or make other arrangements for them. Your meant to do this by rearrangeing your work hours or arrangeing a childminder. If the one you use can't do this it is your responsibility to find one that can. The school will also see it that your child is more important than your work hours and therefore would expect you to change them.

Savvy_Sue

Zziggi wrote:

Nope. Tried this one. DS is going to the school that is not our catchment area school (despite it only being 0.2mile further away in the opposite direction).Because of this the LEA says if you choose a school outside the catchment area then you must transport them (special needs or not).

So I guess DS is not statemented, and that this isn't down as his statement school? Pity that ...

Zziggi wrote:

I just wanted to thank everyone for their suggestions. Can you believe it, this the one issue that has been most bothering me about DS starting school!

Entirely believable! If he has a good start and end to the school day, what happens in between will be easier. If you're easy in your mind about the beginning and end of the school day, your mind will be easier.

Zziggi wrote:

If not then Plan B. Firstly I'll try to make it only 2 days (or less is possible) that the childminder picks up DS. When the childminder does pick DS up I'll tell DS to stay near the classroom door until he is picked up and not to go off with strangers (always good advice). I'll tell the childminder to let it be water of a duck's back if she is a couple few minutes late. Although she is like me and will feel uncomfortable. But ultimately what can the school do? Meanwhile I'll hope that some other arrangement presents itself maybe with another parent or someother arrangement that i haven't thought of yet.

I would combine Plan B with Mumstheword's suggestion ...

Mumstheword wrote:

as I said before, I'd ask them to give you a fortnight's help, and work very hard in that time to sort something out.

And I did agree with what she said about the CSA's position.

Hope you sort it out satisfactorily!

Zziggi

Savvy_Sue wrote:

So I guess DS is not statemented, and that this isn't down as his statement school? Pity that ...

No not statemented. Although if he were, I am sure this school would be seen as the best for him. Not that I want him statemented nor do I think the problems are severe enough to warrant statementing. (Before he even starts at the school they have put him on level1 on SEN - whatever that means?)

With hindsight, I'll not talk to the CSA, I would hate to put her in a difficult possition.

black-saturn wrote:

I don't hold out much hope. The school see it as your responsibilty to pick your children up at 3.05pm or make other arrangements for them. Your meant to do this by rearrangeing your work hours or arrangeing a childminder. If the one you use can't do this it is your responsibility to find one that can. The school will also see it that your child is more important than your work hours and therefore would expect you to change them.

So what's the absolute worst case senario they could do? Report me to Social Services for not making good enough arrangements to pick DS up from school on 2/3 days a week by about 5-10 minutes??? I bet if they did then I'd then actually get more help in other areas.... [not that i am wanting it nor asking for it]

black-saturn

Well yes actually they could report you to social services. If your child was 10 minutes late every morning because you couldn't get him there because of your work commitments you would expect the school to do something about it. Same goes for if your late picking them up. If they let it go with one child they will have to bend the rules for every child in the school. I'm afraid thats what after school clubs and childminders are for. I think your best bet is to find another childminder for those days.

BTW, don't just shoot me down, I'm not the only one with this opinion on this thread.