AIBU to think the new school WhatsApp mum is overstepping?

The students don't book parents evening, to pick a random example so the remindes.fornthatvwere great. And at my school they ask the parents for the money for mufti day donations, not the students. And students aren't allowed phones out during the day so if a parent sees the trains home have all been cancelled and puts it on the group that means plans can be made to lift share etc rather than waiting until the kids have walked to the station and found there are no trains and start phoning home at 3.50pm.

Particularly useful for things like a coach being late back from a trip to save a whole bunch of parents uselessly sitting in their cars at the previous pick up time (pour school tends to let reps know this so they can share it).

Also, school didn't organise transport for gold DofE and we organised a coach to and from Scotland on there as the expected arrival time was earlier than they could have got there independently on the train and 50 parents driving to Scotland and back is stupid.

It has been very useful.

Did you tag by accident? 'Nope' makes little sense in relation to my post.

Nope

I'd be interested to know whether the people with whatsapp groups in secondary schools have children in private schools?

I think generally parental involvement with school community is an expectation at private schools and if all the parents are doing it - then no child is 'mortified' that their Mum/Dad is on the group because everyone's Mum/Dad is. It's just their norm.

Don’t you get 8 million emails a day with all this information?

Then the school is not teaching the children independence when they involve the parents so much.

There were no class reps at DD's school, we had a PTA but they only organised the really large annual events like fair and Christmas concert plus some smaller sport related ones for the teams who represented the school on county level to raise funds for kit and transport costs.

For things like DoE or sport teams - yes, I agree, parental help is required and then some form of organisation helps to avoid every family doing the same thing.

The students don't book parents evening, to pick a random example so the remindes.fornthatvwere great. And at my school they ask the parents for the money for mufti day donations, not the students. And students aren't allowed phones out during the day so if a parent sees the trains home have all been cancelled and puts it on the group that means plans can be made to lift share etc rather than waiting until the kids have walked to the station and found there are no trains and start phoning home at 3.50pm.

Particularly useful for things like a coach being late back from a trip to save a whole bunch of parents uselessly sitting in their cars at the previous pick up time (pour school tends to let reps know this so they can share it).

Also, school didn't organise transport for gold DofE and we organised a coach to and from Scotland on there as the expected arrival time was earlier than they could have got there independently on the train and 50 parents driving to Scotland and back is stupid.

It has been very useful.

I’m surprised at the number of people saying they don’t use WhatsApp groups at secondary. Ours is very active! Recently we have had questions on timings for prize giving, dress code for a school trip, details for an event parents can attend in school time, progress towards school of team buses after matches (some parents use trackers) and lunch card credit.

But Queen B sounds controlling and a bit crazy. That level of admin and control is not required.

How so when you’re talking about 15/16 year olds?

Thank you, yes this is what ours is like- its parents supporting other parents

It isn't completely unusual.

DS1's secondary school had whatsapp groups for the year group (150 kids, almost all had a parent in the group) and some smaller ones for activity-related subgroups (sports teams, performing arts groups etc). Useful even now they have left the school - parents post summer jobs they hear of, other people looking for paid tutors for younger kids etc. After the initial too-much-posting-about-lost-kit it settled down to stuff like the trains have been cancelled, the trip is late/early back, last minute cancellations or additions to the schedule, there is a mufti day, parents evening bookings open tomorrow at 6 (thank the lord for that post every parents eve or I may never have got any appointments!) and that sort of stuff. Not social stuff for the kids but organisational stuff for parents and reminders for people that failed to read/remember the newsletter every week. Mostly sensible parent cohort who talked down the occasional nutters. Genuinely useful after about the first 9 months (when I had it muted more often than not).

DS2's school up to year 11 had them, and again mostly useful with occasional batshittery that was funny if you didn't get involved but his school for 6th form doesn't. I literally never know what is going on there - the newsletter is rambling and disordered so really easy to miss stuff I am supposed to know about. I wish it had one.

But then the massive WhatsApp groups are useful to find the number of a parent no? In my current primary school no one is crazy and it’s used sensibly, people post for example can parent if xyz DM please.,I’ve had it lots of times and it’s to tell me they found my daughters jumper in their kids bag (it’s named) or mostly to invite her for a play date or a party. If used sparingly I think WhatsApp groups are great, it’s good to have them and use where necessary. Too tired to think if the term but something like it’s best to have and not need than to need and not have?

shes been watching too much Amandaland......... i would just go with it and not rock the boat, unfortunately people like this always seem to embed themselves in to school business but she might come in handy at some point

Really weird incident happened my my daughters new school so I wanted some insight and reassurance it’s not a sign of things to come:

We have a WhatsApp group set up from an event in May where all parents are already in and not much activity apart from “did everyone get their forms in” type questions and “does anyone know what clubs the school does” it’s all very casual and parents with older children already at the school have been helpful.

yesterday we found out the form classes our children are in and we met our form teacher in person. Someone in main chat suggested this is a good time to create sub groups for forms and people started posting for example if you are in 7Xyz then join the group. All very friendly and nice till this mum let’s call her Q started ranting and saying “please everyone be patient, when I get home I will sort out” others just questioned that we’re here in person now so easier to set up but her response got very annoyed and said I said be patient. No one else responded on there so I assumed everyone okay with it. I wasn’t bothered right then and thought let her crack on if she wants to take the lead.

after a few hours she created a new community and then sub communities so the new main one for whole of year 7 and then 6 for the forms. She then asked a rep for each form and gave them admin rights, herself too being an admin in EACH form class! She then made it so the community couldn’t post in the main one but had to go though the class admin each time, so I couldn’t just post in the main one I would have to go through my rep who would then post on my behalf!

she then wanted us all to prove we were who we were saying by taking a picture of the name sticker we were given at the event yesterday which has our name, child’s name and form class. I’ll be honest I binned mine and didn’t keep. I was feeling very uncomfortable with all this especially as she kept shouting people down who questioned what she was saying.

I already know 2 mums there as our kids in same primary school so I messaged them and asked what they felt about it all - they just responded vaguely snd not much bother so I thought okay most people don’t care.

Another mum spoke up who I don’t know and questioned why she’s an admin of every sub tutor group when her child is only in one to which lots of people responded saying yes why plus why we can’t post in the main group for all year 7’s. She didn’t do in the way I’m explaining it was more being really nice to her type questioning like she’s scared of her. Q still got upset and said she said she was just trying to help. But I feel it was all rather crazy and wasting everyone’s time. She’s not in my form group thank God. Is this a sign of things to come? DD is my eldest and we’ve had WhatsApp groups in primary but not to this level of craziness! I should avoid Q at all costs and pray our kids don’t become friends yes?

it all feels really bizarre to me like why do all that when it was actually quite simple to do and she made it a million times more complex. Plus why did everyone just go along with it for so long and start posting pictures of their name tags? It’s like one person who I didn’t meet or know suddenly became our leader and everyone went with it. Only when sub group reps realised how much work it will be for them to get each member plus be the go between did one speak up and then it was just really nicey nicey. I really wanted to post how crazy it was but DH stopped me and said don’t do it.

im sorry, I know you're looking for validation and I hate to break it to you but you, your neighbour, your friends and the crazy wattsap community organiser mum are definitely not normal. Whether your location of central London changes things I don't know, but it's definitely not the norm anywhere else.

I know you're not in secondary yet, but parental involvement really does drop off a cliff from the outset. You will eventually have to cave in and give your daughter a phone as otherwise she will miss out on A LOT by default. But the kids do also just chat amongst themselves to organise their parties and days out (not always though, hence why soon she'll be begging you for the phone). Trust everyone who is saying this on here, your input won't be needed (apart from to pay for things probably!) and you should be welcoming that quite frankly!