Guest Posted March 3, 2009 Posted March 3, 2009 Hi everyone, Great to be part of this forum. I'm chairperson of the management committee of a preschool and we are currently working on updating our policies in line with EYFS. We are a popular preschool with quite a long waiting list. The problem we are facing right now is the criteria - Birth order. Our current admission policy first of all states that the child should be living in the area, then we go on to Looked after children, followed by Birth order. We are now finding that this seems a little unfair as a child could have been on the list for ages but is then pushed down the list because someone older comes into the area. The next problem is that children with birthdays in the Summer might never get into our setting especially as the feeder schools around us have started taking only 1 intake. EYFS states birth order as being the main criteria, and I totally understand the reasoning behind this, but we are trying to be as fair as possible and our current systems isn't allowing this - Any suggestions on how to get round this. And would love to hear what's been working for your settings too. Thanks a million
AnonyMouse_8466 Posted March 3, 2009 Posted March 3, 2009 Welcome to the Forum, Neckan I can't really help because I don't have the luxury of a waiting list. However I'm sure someone will be along soon who could help! Maz
Guest Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 We are also a Pre-school and our admissions policy states age of child, catchment and then time on waiting list, on the basis that an older child is closer to entering school and as the closest Pre-school to our Primary School we have very close links (we visit the school every week and the Early Years Teacher visits us every term). Our catchment is not fixed but we are quite rural and time on the waiting list, although some families add children at very young ages by the time they come to us there has never been any problem with admitting them
AnonyMouse_19920 Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 we are also a popular and very busy pre-school and we always have a long waiting list - we work on birth date order purely because older children will be going onto school. we do not have a catchment area and accept children from everywhere - we say as long as parent are prepared to bring them that distance then that is fine. parents who turn up last minute do not always get a space but we send them onto a local pre-school who may have spaces or advise them to contact cis to find out where there are spaces.
AnonyMouse_13453 Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 Parents on our waiting list already take a bit of precedence over newcomers, in that in the year that they are of age to start I enter them on the register daily attendance list (in a different colour) to effectively block those sessions for anyone else. The different colour highlights the fact that the sessions are available in the short-term, but not all year. If anyone approached us for those sessions I tell them that they may be available and I consult the parents to see if they still want those sessions before declining. The parent can then choose to book their child in until May or whatever and hope that additional sessions become available as the year goes on. Children's ages change and ratios change as we go round the year so it's sometimes possible. This has always worked in the past - but there may come a day when the child is with us till May and then we have to say goodbye! I hope that doesn't happen, but as our numbers continue to increase - two more bookings yesterday - there's always the possibility that one day it will. We'll cross that bridge if and when.
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 we worked on birth order.... but we also kept a few spaces for the summer birthday children to have one or two sessions as these are our children for the following year and if they go elsewhere we would be unable to operate. we have a one entry system with schools and children all have a year before they start school with us unless they move into the area as they can all start in the term after 3rd birthday , funded, and that would be the September for the August birthdays.. hence they are with us for a year... If anything for us one year intake meant that in September we always had spaces free.a majority had left in July..often90%. ......come January we started to have limited spaces.. if any... We just wanted the places filled so that we had the income and did not have any 'dead' spaces waiting for children to start, who we often found did not come at all!! Inge
AnonyMouse_3139 Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 Our playgroup is registered for 26 children per session but we always try to work to 25. We go on birth order with the extra space being given to any newcomers. Afte that people have to wait until the following September or until someone leaves.
AnonyMouse_19920 Posted March 4, 2009 Posted March 4, 2009 as siad earlier we work on birth date order but we will allocate all sessions out for next year when we do admissions for next school year - this means that some children do not start with us until april next year but the spaces are held open for them - as someone else said we will sometimes give these spaces out short term until child is due to start.
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 We also work on birth order as the main admissions criteria. We are a village playgroup and take from 2 years 9 months, we are generally full by about March of each year and parents of summer born children for the following academic year can get disappointed. What we do always remind them is that in a lot of cases it can be better for them to wait until the september to get their children in as otherwise there could be an almost 2 year age gap, which in a small setting of 26 children can be quite large. In particular this year we have a lot of boisterous boys and so for a quieter summer born child a whole year and 10/11 months younger this is pretty daunting. We have found this a great policy, otherwise what some parents have tried to do is book their place and then we could have an empty place for ages which could have been filled by a different older child, but it has been 'reserved'. What we have also done though is to increase our 'age specific' afternoons which are more structured pre-school type sessions. We have found that this way even if children can't get into our morning session because they are full then they can still come along to our other sessions, we already are holding afternoon only sessions for children due to start reception in 2010 and 2011. HTH Zoe. xxx
AnonyMouse_22106 Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Hi my 1st posting!! We too are a very popular pre-school playgroup we have just updated our policy to read: 1) sibling of child currently attending playgroup 2) age eldest first I fould that it was causing too many problems with parents who already have a child in playgroup to say their sibling couldn't attend, we even had 1 parent threatening to remove their older child which would've meant losing funding, something we can't afford to lose! You can never win
AnonyMouse_13453 Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Yes - it certainly has to be a high criteria - we use it too. Welcome to the forum and congratulations on making your first post. I do strongly feel that if parents are sufficiently motivated to get their child's name on our waiting list then they should have some priority over other locals who just waltz in at the last minute expecting a place!
AnonyMouse_22106 Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Thanks for the welcome! The reason we reviewed and updated ours was our 1st criteria used to be - child of a current ACTING comittee member - as with out the committee we wouldn't be operating. One very cross mum on the waiting list threatened to report us to Ofsted saying we were discriminating against working parents who hadn't the time to join the committee - doesn't matter that of all our 6 committee members 5 of them work full time! As I said can't win!
AnonyMouse_8466 Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 One very cross mum on the waiting list threatened to report us to Ofsted saying we were discriminating against working parents who hadn't the time to join the committee - doesn't matter that of all our 6 committee members 5 of them work full time! That would have been an interesting conversation, thumberrabbit! It seems to me that everytime something happens at nursery these days I find myself wondering whether some policy or other needs changing in the light of that experience. So much blooming reflection I have little time to do any work! Welcome to the Forum, by the way! Maz
AnonyMouse_22106 Posted March 23, 2009 Posted March 23, 2009 Thanks for the welcome Maz I agree, changing policies to fit what ever crisis has happened that day seems to be coming a too frequent part of my day too! Just don't know what to prioritise on first these days.
Guest Posted March 31, 2009 Posted March 31, 2009 I have just written an admissions policy for nursery at my primary school and found the updated 'school admissions code' that came into force feb 2009 very helpful. It actually advise that chidlren with a statement are always at teh top of your list - and if there is no room, they are still let in. Then 'looked after chidlren' and then other special needs, then children with siblings in school and then by age - it takes a bit of reading and i read quite a few other policies on the internet to see what other people were doing. It seems to me that if your a child born in the summer with no special needs and no siblings, you're at the bottom of the list - regardless of how long you have been on it! Th school admissions code is available in full at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/
Guest Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 Could you tell me WHERE in teh EYFS documentation it mentions admissions criteria because i can't find despite hours of trawling through it!
AnonyMouse_3735 Posted April 1, 2009 Posted April 1, 2009 (edited) not one in EYFS it is up to individual settings so long ad you have a set policy to follow and parents made aware of it.. a school environment using the school criteria may well be very different to PVI setting. Inge Edited April 1, 2009 by Inge
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