That bloody school is make life hard at this time of year

I've worked with schools on this and the issue is parents all want different things. Whatever you do someone complains.

So true! My blood pressure rose just reading this!

My kids school are a lot like this at the moment. I have a year one and a year 3 kid, so it's particularly tricky, as the tend to do things in key stage groups. Their comms is all over the place as well

So this week alone I've had separate emails on:

1. 'Dress down day will be on Monday, bring a gift for the Christmas raffle' - that was sent out yesterday.

1. Don't forget to book tickets (by sending back a piece of paper) for the y1/2 nativity which is next week, and send in an outfit immediately. Fortunately the school supply the costumes, DD just needed a black top and trousers to go under it.

1. Also don't forget to book tickets (on an app this time) for the KS2 carol concert which will be at 2pm and 5.30pm. No mention of logistics, what time they have to be there for the evening session, permission to attend, what time it finishes. Oh and only 2 tickets per child for each session, so no taking DD to that session, which means only one of us can go after all.

1. Oh and also, despite Monday being dress down day the whole school is off to church for the afternoon, so please dress the child accordingly. (That one came this morning)

1. And finally, don't forget Monday is flu jab day.

1. And something on attendance as well.

1. Oh and a reminder to top up lunch accounts.

All separate emails. There will be a newsletter one today as well which might cover some, but not all of those, and will have other stuff in too.

Then on the term dates calendar we have - don't forget the 5th January is a PD day.

Then on the separate events calendar - Christmas jumper day is on the 17th, and Christmas dinner day too. If you need to opt out of Christmas dinner do it here (another app)

We have 'news', 'newsletters', and 'updates' on the website - 3 separate spaces for the school to post news, none of which seem to sync with each other, and as above, 2 separate calendars for key dates, (and a clubs calendar too, which I can ignore because my two don't do any school clubs) plus facebook, emails, text messages and the odd bit of paper home too.

It's not so much the volume although that can be a bit much, it's the fact that it comes from so many places, and is as a result, difficult to track and keep on top of. I also deal with a separate after school club who send messages too, and they haven't got the hang of sending one per set of siblings, so I get everything twice from them.

I do like my kids school, they are brilliant in all the ways that really matter, but this comms could surely, surely be improved.

@BellaBal
yes, why the pdf? It isn’t searchable when I want to go back and find information in my email. It would be so simple to just send all the information as email text. It could even be bullet points.

You don't have to engage with 95% of this nonsense though. On this count (and this is unusual for me) I'm with the dads. Just think to yourself "What would the average dad do?" and do that, which is usually to ignore all the pointless guilt tripping.

I really don't know why schools do all this OTT Christmas shit if it makes more work for the staff, more hassle for overworked mums parents, and ends up overwhelming the kids.

DS2 is my youngest, and off to secondary in the autumn. I cannot tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.

I find all those dress up as an X (the weird one being for maths day - who knew that was a thing) throughout the year as if we have all the time in the world plus the skills to make them. I remember scouring Roald Dahl books to find a bloody mention of a cat as my DD was that for Halloween and I didn’t want to do another costume (I found a very tenuous reference as turns out the guy was not a fan of cats). Anyway Christmas doesn’t seem to be that much more intense - we gave homemade fudge as gifts and hoped they still fit into (and I could still find) their Christmas jumpers. Didn’t faff about the lunch it was an option on the day you didn’t sign up for it. But yea I think what schools imagine are ‘fun’ activities for the kids are really added stress for the parents - inevitably someone forgets and poor Jonny shows up in his regular uniform/forgets the £1 donation or tin of peas for the food bank collection!

I don’t think it helps that schools now seem to have a two week period leading up to Christmas that is packed full of events. Back in my day, you brought a board game in on the last day of term and that was it!

I have no idea why schools now do this elongated period of non stop activities given that it stresses parents and staff alike.

Just go back to what it used to be. Wear your Xmas jumper, have your Xmas dinner and play games - on the last day only!

My youngest started secondary this year and it’s really taken some of the stress off this time of year to no longer have a child in primary! I know I’ll look back fondly in the future though.

The problem with ours is finding the new stuff amongst the many many reminders. I don't want reminders i want to be able to find the original handy table with all dates for the term on it.

I think teachers should work towards one information, update and photo dump a week, everything in one go. It's much more organised and professional.

My son starts reception next year and you are all terrifying me! I barely manage to keep it together with work and one child in nursery 😬

For me it’s the last minute notices about things, especially any involving money. I knew about the Christmas fair well in advance and I’ve been to lots over the years now to know how they go down. Each child generally needs at least a tenner and I get ripped off by things like reindeer hot chocolate bags I could make myself and a tombola with shit prizes. Standard but I know it’s coming.

Yesterday we were told last minute about a sponsored reindeer run. They’ve happened before granted but we have a week to raise the money.

I completely agree. But even she is a lot easier to deal with if the answer every time is a standard email with the same link to the school calendar, which contains all the information.

The problem is parents don’t read what they are sent.
One year school sent out a list at the start of the year with every single date on it, every trip, every show.
One of the mums harassed me everytime something came up, complained she hadn’t been told, why did I know ahead and she didn’t. I was in her kitchen and the list was on her fridge. Some people do want spoon feeding.

If I communicated to my stakeholders (who I need to influence and persuade) in a way which didn’t work very well, I’d do a lessons learned and work out what needed to change.

I get that teachers and office staff don’t have time to do this, but I think it’s an SLT responsibility (maybe when things are quieter in the summer holidays) to work out communication that’s more effective for parents and less work for teachers and office staff. They could just ask around, and copy a similar school where it works well (there are some).

And I do appreciate this is all more work in their holiday time - but it’s invest to save. Fewer queries from parents, more trips paid for, fewer urgent calls home for costumes etc would all add up to less work overall.

It drives me mad how many communications school send out. I think it takes a certain type of person working a school office not to think lets combine these comms to make it easy for parents rather than how to do I make myself look busy sending out email after email.

Looking back to my dc's primary days, I used often to think that if any of the school leadership had ever worked in a more commercial environment, they woukd have been far more en-pointe about communication.

As a switched on parent, however, I recall endless calls from other parents about "is it the cake sale on Friday?", "when's the trip and when does the money need to be in by", etc. So I can also understand the school's frustrations and used to have to bite my tongue to say "just get yourself organised and buy a fucking planner.

Yes! I've actually got kids who really couldn't give a shit about this stuff, one of them hates Christmas and I still feel the pressure - why?

The answer to this is to send your child to a shit primary like DDs, where they just did very little. I can’t say I’m that sad about it now. There would be a Christmas performance of some sort usually at 11am so you had to take the whole day off if you travelled for work.
90% of their interaction was something called ‘open afternoon’ where you could come and look at your children’s work, and most importantly, take your children home early. Every bloody term.

We had an extremely productive pta meeting last autumn. Turns out one of the teachers did not take it well, ended up with the pta chair (who wasn't actually at the meeting) quitting. But anyway, we did manage to get the Christmas hat competition where they needed to make a hat at home for the day they have school Christmas dinner changed to them making it with their friends in school time.

Teachers wonder why there is a widespread conception that they have an easy life. THIS is why. 2 parent working households don't have time in December to make a Christmas hat with their child (as young as 4). Also one year we had 6 days notice on the Nativity costume, FFS!! Maybe if teachers lives are as tough as they say, they to would find these pressures unmanageable and adjust accordingly.

This is absolutely spot on. I note some of the teachers on here seem frustrated that they are working so hard to do all of this stuff and feel unappreciated but kids don’t need this much stuff to make Christmas special!!!

Im sure it’s hard work for the teachers, and it’s bloody overwhelming for parents, just cut it right back.

Nativity, Xmas disco and maybe a Christmas school lunch is what we had years ago in the 90s and I’m not scarred.

It’s a symptom of all the over top shit parents are supposed to do nowadays and I hate it. Pumpkin patches and millions of Halloween activities, advent boxes, Christmas Eve boxes, the bloody elf.

Kids don’t want it either.

Christmas stuff for my middle son is difficult because he's autistic and doesn't participate in a lot of class activities. For example today the whole school are going to a pantomime at the Marlowe theatre Canterbury. It's a trip 11.30 to 4.30. my son is staying home as he has absolutely no desire to go (but my year 8 daughter would have LOVED it)

In my daughter's secondary school only those who book Christmas dinner can eat in the canteen as normal hot dinners/hot takeaway snacks are off that day

It’s completely ridiculous how much my DGCs schools bombard parents with info these days. There’s so many different apps that have to be navigated. I suspect each teacher/year head has their favourite and uses that rather than the school agreeing on a single format for all classes. Plus it’s evident there are no policies for how many communications go out to parents. In my various jobs comms with customers were always highly controlled and anyone sending unauthorised messages would be in big trouble.

It's seems worse than ever this year. It's the first year I've not managed to keep up with it all and my DD is really upset we've missed the after school school disco and 'hot chocolate Fridays' but work have decided to ramp up the 'you must attend the office' message at the same time. Luckily she'll still make the Christmas party, Christmas jumpers, Christmas charity run, Christmas dinner, Christmas theatre trip, random PE whole school PE day, and two different dates for the Christmas performance one being in the evening. Each one is one a different day, permission must be booked separately and in advance online, the links to do have been drip fed over the last few weeks. Different lunch, uniform and pick arrangements for each one. Don't forget we're a cashless school except for the events that require cash. If you could also please volunteer for the trips, send in donations for the raffles (different colour items per class see last week's newsletter), fill up a shoebox for a sick child (contents restricted see other letter), send out cards, join in the teacher collections, and help your child learn the school play lines. Oh and your homeworks late, you've forgotten to send in a book for the book advent calendar and your child didn't revise their spellings. Don't forget wet weather clothing!

Our school have the normal Christmas stuff going on and have added in information evenings about all sorts to the mix. They seem to want us there at least 1 evening a week at the moment.