Re: Children of at different times in school
When I was a kid in primary, the younger classes got off earlier too, but back in those days, generally what happened was the younger infants who could not be collected for whatever reason, sat in for the hour on the older children's classes until home time.
There were many infants who had to wait under supervision, as it was a rural school with pupils coming from anything from 100 yards to 7 miles away, and many families depended on schoolbuses to bring their kids to and from school, as back in the early 80s many families either had no car at all, or one car which would more than likely be 15 miles or more away with the father at his place of work, with him stuck at work unable to drop everything to go collect the kids, and the mother stuck at home unable to go fetch the children due to either distance or minding other younger siblings etc...
So there was no choice other than to have the younger classes sit in on the older classes until all the classes finished up, and the single school bus that served the entire school arrived to cart the kids off home.
My incredibly longwinded point is to ask - what happens nowadays if there is no-one able to collect the child at 2 pm? Do schools still allow this practice of infants sitting in under supervision, or do they get placed (as we did) sitting quietly at the back of an older class, or are they just turfed out on their ear to fend for themselves for the hour until they are picked up?
Is it all an insurance/supervision issue nowadays, whereas back then the teachers generally didn't mind having the care of extra infants in the classroom as it was the norm and expected?