Four events this week at school during working hours…

It's not putting children first. I can't imagine any other routine situations in primary school where schools know what they are organising will leave some children very upset i.e. because their parents are not there, but they go on doing it anyway

There is a real double standard that goes on in schools. our local state primary head wouldn’t allow an auction of promises (to raise money for school to build a library ) to include teachers time or head for a day as it’s not “fair that children whose parents don’t have money for extras can’t participate “ However they have no problem discriminating against children of working parents by having four events in one week that parents are invited to / expected to attend.

it wasn’t a thing when I was in primary , but seems to be coming more and more an issue, and then we wonder why women are giving up their careers

Every teacher up here will be on more than £50k after 5 years - it's the nationally agreed pay scale.

I am aware that teachers will work more than 35 hours - but not many professions work exactly to their hours, they're not unusual there. The issue is that teachers are trying to squeeze a lot of work into not many working days across the year. I know I couldn't do my job in 195 days pa - not many full time professions could.

A nativity that no one turned up to, pull the other one! Most schools have limited tickets per family as everyone makes the time to attend. But that is very different to school becoming a stay and play expecting the parents to attend four times in a week.

Raising your daughter to know her place and your son to neglect his duties at home doesn't make you a good mum, quite the opposite. Your children are at a much higher risk of growing up in abusive relationships because you normalise a power imbalance in your home.

Plenty of grandparents are still working

Many of us have already answered this - they are supposed to schedule these events well in advance to let working parents book annual leave. What they are looking not supposed to do - as my DC's schools did on numerous occasions - is send a notification home a few days before the event, with a note saying grandparents are welcome if parents can't make it. A)parents can't make it because it's too short notice to book leave and b)not everyone has grandparents who are not working/alive/living in the vicinity. Most other professions manage their calendars well in advance, this is not an unusual practice in the workplace.

Schools just need to realise it’s 2026 not 1926 and the reason the attendance at random daytime events is disappointing is that parents are working, not sitting in front of daytime telly like @ThankYouNigel. The teachers need to adapt their thinking skills - post a video on the learning portal instead of expecting parents to schlep to school at 11am.

I suspect the @ThankYouNigel kids will be teenage rebels desperate to escape their smothering mother.

We always hated school mandated craft projects. Making stuff out of recycling was always a total PITA and seemed to be a complete waste of time. It wasn't reusing stuff, the recycling generally couldn't be recycled again at the end due to the massive amount of sellotape holding it all together and had a tenuous connection to whatever the topic was... Usually making a rocket because they were learning about space but with no real teaching about what a rocket should look like so we (I) always made one which looked like the one from Button Moon.....

I do enjoy doing art with DS which he also enjoys but homework crafts brought us both out in hives!!

What are schools supposed to do though? They either invite parents to things in the hope that they can attend some of them. Or they don’t invite parents to things and get accused of not engaging with the parents. They’re on a hiding to nothing.
Ofsted breathes down their neck to achieve stupid goals so they send homework out in the hope that parents will engage with their kids over the holidays rather than the kids being bored or on screens for a week and coming back jaded. Schools want parents to understand what their kids are learning and parents to interact with their kids.
Schools don’t seem to be able to get a thing right as far as parents are concerned. Better for parents to be invited to 10 things in the hope of getting to 1 than never being invited at all, surely.

It will be even worse if they allow teachers to work 4 days a week , the kids will have twice the homework to cover the curriculum !

Sounds like you haven’t chosen a very good school for your DC’s.

Excellent posts @PinkAnt

Oh it’s an option I’ll always keep on the table, I monitor my children’s school very closely, and I’m certainly not reliant on them. I do temporarily home educate when needed, eg during the heatwave, as there was no way I was sending them back into a building which was making them feel physically sick. I ran all their lessons at home, no biggie. If their school can’t sort themselves out and be better equipped ready for the next heatwave then yeah, I’ll pull them out again. Same as if bullying was happening and went unchecked, etc. The duty to educate children is legally and morally the parents, always has been.

Yes amazing aren’t they, it’s a shame when some of them think parents like yourself aren’t prioritising their children, they really should understand that not everyone can love their children properly like they can. You’re just doing your best even if your kids are likely to be incredibly upset at your lack of attention and care.
You should pop that duster down and look into it properly, you’re providing the next generation of mothers and male providers after all, they need you to be less selfish about spending so much time away from them.

I agree that anyone who home educates is fantastic, really hardworking and is making a monumental effort…I take my hat off to them! I’m not threatened by people who do things differently, and congratulate others on their efforts for their children. Home educators really are top drawer parents!

The best thing about this thread is remembering being a teenager of a SAHM, and envying my friends with working mums because my mum was always around, hassling me, being a mum. I wanted to be left alone and not have to fit in with proper SAHM tea times and the like 🤣🤣

Gosh @ThankYouNigel your poor kids. So you’re a stay at home mum and you’ve chosen to palm your children off to school instead of spending time with them. You could be educating them at home making sure any daughters have important home making lessons along side a regular education so they have that real choice you’re after.
Your kids know you’re at home but have chosen to send them off for 38 weeks a year so you can potter about, they must be very sad indeed knowing how unwanted they are. But it’s ok you’ve turned up to a couple of events.
Sad they’re not a real priority for you.

The biggest issue for me was we’d get emails saying
dear parents/carers
further to the recent phonics sessions we are really disappointed with the low level of parental/carers attending
blah blah blah
this is for parents not the kids and if they want us to be aware - do a teams meeting one evening or something nobody has to physically attend

The bigg

No one thinks being a SAHM is controversial - couldn’t give a monkeys what you do or how you do it, but your goady, patronising tone is offensive. Glad being a SAHM works for you, but don’t you dare assume you’re somehow a better parent for it. If anything, you’re setting a really shitty example to your daughter of what women can achieve.

Most primary teachers will only get a morning of planning, most will not be anywhere near 50k after just 5 years.

Oh come on, you know that the contractural 35 hour week is the bare minimum most teachers here work!

How wonderful for you and your kids. Your post screams of privilege. Not everyone can afford to be a stay at home mum. And not everyone can anticipate what their life will be like by the time their kids start school. Perhaps some people did plan to be able to afford to stay home and be at every school event but now they’ve lost their partner either through bereavement or breakdown of the relationship and they now cannot afford not to work. There are a myriad of reasons someone might not be able to be a stay at home mum which have nothing to do with poor planning 🤣

You don’t think working parents spend their time on their children when they are not in school and after school activities?

For the record, I have never said that. I know you love your children and are proud of them. You wouldn’t be on here arguing if you didn’t 😂 I respect that.

I struggle to understand the differences in possible time spent with them, but that’s my love language. I do get that there are different love languages. I personally feel loved if somebody has time free to spend with me and have a conversation, gifts mean little. My sister, however, never feels more loved than when opening expensive presents, and spends more money on my children’s presents than I do 😂